X 


UCNiV.   OJf   CALIF.  LI«KAK\.  U>S  A 

CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 


Crumbs  and  His  Times 

BY 
DOLORES  BACON 

Author  of  '"Diary  of  a  Musician," 
"The  King's  Divinity,"  Etc. 


NEW  YORK 

Doubleday,   Page  &  Company 
1906 


Copyright,  1906,  by 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 

Published,  September,  1906 


All  rights  reserved 

including  that  of  translation  into  foreign  languages, 
including  the  Scandinavian 


TO 

MY  SON    CHARLES 


2125646 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     The  Molluscan  Stage  -                        3 

II.     Infant  Fads  and  Fancies  -                          -           18 

III.  Original  Tendencies  -  36 

IV.  Bending  the  Twig      -  -           51 
V.     Indirect  Methods         -  -           69 

VI.     The  Question  of  Obedience  -                         -          91 

VII.     A  Cure  for  the  Tantrums  -                         -        106 

VIII.     Generosity  and  Self-Control  -                          -         121 

IX.     Fact  Versus  Truth       -  -         139 

X.     The  Seventh  Year       -  -            -                     155 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"  Give  me  the  first  seven  years  of  a  child's 
life,  and  I  care  not  who  has  the  rest" 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   MOLLUSCAN    STAGE 

CRUMBS  and  I  first  became  ac- 
quainted somewhere  about  his 
second  hour.  It  was  later  that 
we  called  him  "  Crumbs  " ;  not  because  of 
any  foolish,  fantastical  notion,  but  be- 
cause at  about  his  fourth  year  it  had 
become  his  habit  to  search  the  scripture 
of  the  parental  mind  at  those  times  when 
he  "wanted  to  know,"  and  one  day  he 
asked  me  why  I  had  "  choosed  "  him.  I 
explained  to  him  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  he  was  just  about  the  sort  of  boy  I 
wanted,  and  that  I  could  not  get  on 


4  CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

without  him.  He  expressed  much  sat- 
isfaction at  my  preference,  and  seemed 
from  that  moment  to  regard  himself  as 
having  some  advantage  over  his  fellows. 
This  was  an  attitude  which  I  accepted 
as  a  sort  of  back-action  tribute  to  me. 

He  mentioned  some  time  afterward 
when  I  had  chided  him  for  breaking 
loose  like  an  Indian  as  I  entered  the 
house  after  a  short  absence,  that  he 
'"sposed"  he  acted  that  way  in  my 
presence,  rather  than  in  the  presence  of 
others,  because  I  had  "choosed"  him. 
Also,  that  he  '"sposed  he  woved"  (short 
on  1's,)  me  for  the  same  reason;  that  as 
I  just  had  to  take  him  instead  of  some 
other,  he  "  'sposed  he  felt  differ 'nt  " 
about  me. 

It  seemed  to  me  this  had  a  bearing 
upon  the  matter  of  pre-natal  responsi- 
bility. I  do  not  know  that  I  should 
have  formulated  my  thought  thus,  if  I 
had  not  begun  long  before  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  Crumbs  and  learn.  I  was  glad  at 
that  moment  when  he  spoke  so  confid- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES  5 

ingly,  so  simply  of  my  choice,  that  I  had 
chosen  him — chosen  him  long  before  I 
knew  him.  At  any  rate  I  had  thought 
of  him  very  much  as  he  was,  long  before 
he  was  born. 

After  this  discussion  of  my  choice,  he 
asked  if  he  had  been  "just  crumbs"  be- 
fore I  "choosed"  him.  This  protoplas- 
mic thought  in  so  youthful  a  mind  seemed 
worthy  of  recognition;  hence,  "  Crumbs.  " 

He  was  never  pleased  with  the  name 
because,  as  he  explained,  he  had  ceased 
to  be  "  crumbs  "  when  he  was  "  choosed.  " 
However,  he  submitted  in  a  graceful 
spirit  of  accommodation  on  the  ground 
that  since  I  had  preferred  him  to  all 
others,  there  were  certain  indulgences 
due  from  him  to  me.  In  this  I  recog- 
nised an  original  tendency — a  ten- 
dency toward  fairness.  I  do  not  know 
that  Crumbs'  attitude  toward  me  changed 
for  many  a  day;  and  during  the  process 
of  his  early  development,  it  was  only 
necessary  for  me  to  remind  him  that  I  had 
chosen  him  with  all  my  heart  in  order  to 


6  CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

receive  from  him  some  benefit.  Later, 
he  was  to  serve  me  for  love  alone. 

When  I  first  saw  him  he  looked  pathet- 
ically like  an  old  gentleman  to  me,  and 
quite  absurdly  like  one  to  other  people; 
absurdly  like,  no  doubt,  because  they 
had  not  chosen  him.  Though  he  was 
absurd  to  others  and  pathetic  to  mef 
I  longed  to  think  there  must  be  some 
particular  in  which  there  could  be  no 
change.  I  thought  I  should  like  to  look 
upon  his  eccentricity  of  feature  say 
forty  years  afterward. 

There  came  an  early  day  when  Crumbs, 
who  had  seemed  to  be  as  blind  as  a 
kitten,  refusing  to  open  his  eyes,  con- 
templated me  seriously.  Then  I  felt 
that  I,  too,  had  been  chosen,  and  I  was 
glad,  since  many  are  called  to  mother- 
hood, but  I  doubt  if  all  are  properly 
chosen. 

My  cook  had  told  me  that  infants 
neither  smiled  nor  shed  tears  at  two 
weeks  of  age,  but  if  that  be  the  rule, 
Crumbs  was  in  no  way  circumscribed  by 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES  7 

it.  He  did  not  have  to  smile;  he  had 
little  upward  and  outward  wrinkles  about 
his  eyes  that  did  the  business  for  him. 
When  we  looked  at  each  other,  Crumbs' 
wrinkles  would  break  up,  and  our  anti- 
phonal  was  not  the  less  profound  in  its 
meaning  to  me,  because  unsounding. 
Crumbs  had  a  talking  pair  of  eyes,  even 
in  the  molluscan  period  of  his  existence. 

That  sun-rise  love  of  ours  seemed  to 
rejuvenate  Crumbs  within  the  week. 
By  that  time  I  had  begun  to  resent  not 
only  a  change  of  feature,  but  that  trans- 
mutation of  tissue,  scientifically,  inevit- 
ably, to  take  place  in  the  course  of  days 
and  years.  I  wanted  him  just  as  he  was, 
never  to  become  grown  up,  never  to  be- 
come helpful  to  himself  or  me,  but  just 
to  remain  a  little  pulpy  oyster  who  de- 
manded me  to  be  all  his,  and  who  knew 
me  to  be  so  by  a  faculty  greater  than 
reason.  But  of  the  things  which  I  re- 
sented most  at  this  time  was  a  midnight 
conference  between  Crumbs'  grand- 
mother and  his  father.  So  far  I  had 


8  CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

been  left  out  of  these  consultations,  as 
one  whose  mind  was  without  form  and 
void  on  the  subject  of  her  own  son. 
Crumbs'  father  and  grandmother  were 
divided  upon  the  subject  of  aniseed  tea — 
should  it  be  taken,  and  if  taken,  should 
it  be  administered  with  a  spoon  to  a  two- 
weeks  old  child  ? 

His  father  was  conservative,  and  ob- 
jected to  what  he  believed  to  be  an  ex- 
periment. Crumbs'  grandmother  had 
given  aniseed  tea — out  of  a  spoon — to 
five  children  of  her  own  and  to  several 
children  who  belonged  to  her  young,  un- 
tried female  relatives;  she  ought  to  know 
something  about  it.  I  have  since  sus- 
pected that  she  did,  but  that  midnight 
I  was  taking  no  chances.  I  preferred  to 
save  the  baby  and  to  put  his  grand- 
mother through  her  examination  after- 
ward. 

Not  having  anticipated  the  issue  of 
aniseed  tea  in  a  spoon,  I  was  no  better 
prepared  to  render  judgment  than  Sol- 
omon would  have  been,  hence  I  kept 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES          9 

silence  and  prayed  for  wisdom.  The 
boy's  father  was  of  the  opinion  that  ani- 
seed tea  filled  the  boy  up  to  no  purpose; 
that  if  he  was  hungry  he  had  better  have 
his  more  sustaining  food.  Crumbs'  grand- 
mother was  of  the  opinion  that  the 
boy  had  already  had  too  much,  and  that 
aniseed  tea  was  useful  principally  to 
mislead  him,  to  make  him  think  that  he 
was  getting  something,  while  in  fact  he 
was  getting  nothing  at  all.  Thus,  by 
easy  stages,  the  argument  drifted  from 
the  material  to  the  moral  question:  shall 
we  give  him  aniseed  tea  or  shall  we  in- 
culcate the  first  principles  of  self- 
control? 

His  father  thought  the  grandmother 
absurd;  his  grandmother  knew  the  father 
to  be  so.  Meanwhile,  Crumbs,  who  after 
all  was  said  and  done  on  the  subject  of 
aniseed  belonged  to  me,  had  swallowed 
enough  of  the  surrounding  atmosphere 
to  make  him  cry  to  some  purpose.  With- 
out awaiting  the  call  of  wisdom,  I  signi- 
fied that  I  was  awake  and  knew  what  to 


io         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

do  since  I  had  chosen  him,  and  I  did  it. 
A  woman  is  never  a  prophet  in  her  own 
family,  and  the  fact  that  a  warm  contact 
and  a  sympathetic  hand  upon  a  much 
discussed  "turn- turn"  brought  peace,  did 
not  convince  anybody;  but  it  established 
my  supremacy,  if  it  also  interrupted  a 
large  moral  disquisition  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  Crumbs'  stomach. 

About  this  time  I  took  to  making  it 
difficult  for  Crumbs  to  breath  through  his 
mouth.  I  leaned  up  on  my  elbow  half 
the  night  watching  him  not  do  it,  be- 
cause his  father  had  an  idea  that  one 
could  not  begin  too  early  to  form  a  child's 
proper  habits.  For  my  part,  I  never  had 
any  notions  about  Crumbs'  habits  nor 
his  bringing  up.  I  always  felt  that  it 
was  going  to  be  infinitely  better  to  "  in- 
stinc"  it — Crumbs'  own  word  later — 
while  the  conditions  of  uncertainty  were 
upon  us. 

In  the  first  month  I  discovered  so 
many  rules  which  didn't  fit  Crumbs,  that 
I  decided  either  he  was  an  exceptional 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         n 

child,  or  the  rules  applied  to  babies  were 
mere  tales  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying 
nothing  in  this  world. 

For  example,  the  prescribed  amount  of 
milk  once  in  two  hours  Crumbs  couldn't 
hold  with  comfort  to  himself  or  with 
convenience  to  other  people.  He  had  a 
sort  of  three-quarter  gill  capacity  with  a 
pint  assimilative  gauge,  which  meant  a 
little  less  a  little  oftener,  and  there  he  was, 
right  as  a  trivet!  Yet  a  circumscribed 
spinster,  who  was  learning  in  a  teacher's 
college  all  about  how  to  bring  up  a 
mother,  made  unpleasant  remarks  con- 
cerning the  frequency  with  which  Crumbs 
was  fed  one  day  when  I  had  been  self- 
sacrificing  enough  to  let  her  have 
luncheon  with  us. 

Another  perfectly  seasoned  mother, 
who  had  brought  four  massive  percherons 
into  the  world,  each  of  whom  might  have 
begun  on  tacks,  or  anything  else  that 
could  have  been  boiled,  reminded  me 
that  I  was  to  "Let  him  cry!  what  else 
are  babies  for?  Good  Heaven!  It's  good 


12         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

for  'em.  "  All  the  while,  Crumbs  was 
getting  black  in  the  face  for  want  of  a 
little  decent  treatment,  because  in  de- 
ference to  the  lady  with  the  percherons 
I  was  bringing  him  up  according  to  rule 
for  the  afternoon. 

Then  there  was  a  rule  about  putting 
something  or  other  on  his  head,  which 
should  soften  something  or  other  which 
was  not  there,  and  about  doing  it  each 
morning  after  his  bath.  Whatever  it 
was  that  was  prescribed,  it  made  him 
smell  salvey  and  glisten  unpleasantly. 
I  waived  that  rule  without  mentioning 
it,  he  had  his  head  washed  in  honest 
soap  suds  and  lived  through  it.  I  learn- 
ed afterwards  that  it  was  not  necessary 
to  use  the  stuff  if  babies  did  not  need  it, 
but  it  was  the  rule  to  use  it,  to  make 
sure  they  should  not  need  it. 

There  came  a  piping  hot  day  when  he 
was  a  month  old — after  we  had  been 
confidants  for  two  weeks, — and  he  signi- 
fied to  me  that  even  very  young  oysters 
should  be  clothed  with  some  regard  for 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         13 

their  feelings  and  the  weather.  A  family 
howl  went  up  that  belonged  to  the  dark 
ages  and  the  ride,  when  I  took  off  a  few 
layers  of  Crumbs'  clothing.  Another 
baby  who  was  going  to  live  according  to 
rule  till  he  was  able  to  kick  the  rules  to 
Kingdomcome,  and  who  lived  just  over 
the  way,  was  all  speckled, — according  to 
rule — but  Crumbs  was  as  comfortable  as 
one  set  of  flannels  could  make  him. 
When  in  doubt  about  him  I  played  the 
trump  of  instinct.  Instinct,  of  course, 
was  Crumbs'  trump  card  also,  and  our 
combined  blindness  frequently  resulted 
in  some  uncommon  good  sense.  At 
those  times  when  we  missed,  we  laughed 
and  didn't  tell  anybody. 

For  some  time  we  added  greatly  to  the 
gaiety  of  nations — represented  by  the 
German  cook,  the  Swedish  house-maid, 
the  Irish  nurse-maid  and  the  man-about 
who  owed  his  characteristics  to  an  in- 
ternational alliance — but  I  stood  firm 
for  Crumbs,  and  tried  to  live  patiently 
under  the  opprobrium  cast  upon  me  by 


i4         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

discreeter  women.  Some  of  them  had 
had  six  babies  to  my  one,  but  I  am  still 
convinced  that  they  had  been  less  in 
their  confidence  than  I  was  in  the  con- 
fidence of  Crumbs. 

However  it  was,  for  a  very  long  season 
we  had  an  anxious  time  of  it;  because, 
if  we  guessed  right,  nothing  was  going  to 
happen ;  but,  if  we  guessed  wrong,  every- 
thing was  going  to  happen.  There  was 
the  teachers'  college  mother,  the  lady  of 
the  percherons,  the  mother  according  to 
rule  over  the  way  with  her  speckled  baby, 
and  there  was  Crumbs'  grandmother, 
eternally  wracked  because  she  had  brought 
up  four  children  and  I  hadn't.  It 
did  seem  to  me  that  I  must  be  a  fairly 
good  example  of  how  not  to  do  it.  Fin- 
ally there  was  Crumbs'  father.  He  didn't 
set  up  as  an  authority,  but  even  while  he 
stood  by  us,  I  knew  that  he  was  appre- 
hensive, wished  we  wouldn't,  and  only 
refrained  from  asking  us  to  take  advice 
because  he  was  loyal  unto  death.  He 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         15 

might  not  be  able  to  save  us,  but  he 
could  die  with  us. 

There  were  dreadful  moments  when  I 
did  not  positively  know  if  it  had  been  I, 
or  his  father,  or  his  grandmother,  or  his 
nurse,  or  almost  anybody  else  that  was 
his,  who  had  given  Crumbs  birth;  but 
through  it  all  I  stuck  to  the  superficial 
truth  that  he  was  mine  by  divine  right 
of  that  personal  preference  shown  me  by 
him.  Hence,  although  we  were  deci- 
mal— one,  and  say  nine  tenths  (Crumbs 
being  the  one) — in  point  of  numbers,  yet 
Crumbs  and  I,  by  hanging  together, 
managed  not  to  hang  separately,  and 
things  finally  went  of!  as  well  as  if  we 
had  gone  by  rule  instead  of  by  love. 
Neither  of  us  boasted  of  this,  because  we 
had  a  hard  enough  time  as  it  was,  but  we 
early  recognised  that  we  must  pool  our 
issues  against  an  experienced  and  critical 
world,  if  Crumbs  was  to  begin  as  an  in- 
dividual and  not  as  a  polyp. 

I  did  not  start  him  out  on  individual 
lines  during  his  first  moments  for  he  did 


16        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

not  stand  in  immediate  need  of  such 
treatment;  but  I  did  not  long  delay,  be- 
cause I  felt  that  the  sooner  I,  myself,  fell 
into  approved  lines,  the  better  for  our 
future  relations.  His  embryonic  condition 
could  not  be  for  long,  and  the  sooner 
I  began  to  regard  him  as  my  own  child, 
and  not  as  a  teachers'  college  mother's 
child,  the  better  for  Crumbs  and  me. 

I  believed  that  he  had  a  kind  of  dig- 
nity to  consider,  even  while  in  the  oyster 
state,  because  he  was  ours.  This  may 
have  been  a  sharp  egotism  on  my  part, 
but  not  a  very  harmful  one,  if  not 
carried  too  far.  Moreover,  a  man,  wo- 
man or  child  must  have  plenty  of  egotism 
if  he  is  going  to  be  a  good  citizen.  The 
man  who  doesn't  feel  that  he,  personally, 
is  responsible  for  the  enforcement  of  law 
and  order,  in  pretty  much  every  quarter 
of  the  globe,  is  the  man  who  is  not  going 
to  be  too  particular  to  establish  residence 
about  voting  time;  and  his  excuse  is 
going  to  be  that  it's  no  use  so  long  as  the 
Primaries  are  run  as  they  are! 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES      i? 

I  intended  Crumbs  to  think  himself  of 
so  much  importance  in  this  world,  that 
when  he  saw  the  Artful  Dodger  at  work 
he  would  mention  it  to  a  policeman.  I 
knew  that  Crumbs  would  necessarily  get 
himself  more  or  less  disliked  at  times,  but 
if  he  came  to  be  known  by  the  sort  of 
enemies  he  made,  I  could  stand  it,  be- 
cause I  meant  to  help  him  make  the 
right  ones. 


CHAPTER    II 

INFANT    FADS    AND    FANCIES 

CEVERAL  things  had  happened  in 
^  the  readjustment  of  the  house- 
hold which,  before  Crumbs'  birth,  I 
had  regarded  with  tranquility  if  not 
with  enthusiasm.  As  an  example:  the 
room  allotted  to  Crumbs  had  been 
elaborately  fries-ed  and  dado-ed  with 
birds,  animals  and  other  such  matters 
supposed  to  be  presented  in  their  natural 
colours.  It  had  seemed  to  me,  in  con- 
templating the  result,  that  the  artist  had 
had  periods  of  colour-blindness  while  en- 
gaged upon  the  job,  or  that  the  colour- 
press  lacked  training.  However,  since 
this  had  been  done  with  a  view  to  de- 
veloping Crumbs'  incipient  and  imminent 
mind  I  had  let  the  work  go  on;  es- 
pecially since  it  pleased  the  grown-ups. 
But  at  six  months,  Crumbs,  with  all  his 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         19 

educational  advantages,  didn't  know  the 
American  eagle  from  good  red-herring, 
and  I  had  contracted  a  continual  night- 
mare. 

The  tails  of  the  birds  "in  natural 
colours "  took  to  wagging  at  me  in  my 
sleep,  and  most  of  the  creatures  turned 
out  to  be  loons  who  laughed  a  merry 
"Ha,  Ha''  every  time  I  went  into  the 
room  to  make  sure  that  the  window  was 
down  from  the  top — which  it  was  not — 
and  that  the  hand  that  ruled  the  world 
was  not  doing  its  worst — which  it  al- 
most always  was.  That  the  baby's  milk 
should  not  be  churned  inside  it,  and  that 
the  crib  rockers  should  be  regarded  solely 
as  reminders  of  a  by-gone  crime — these 
were  the  only  things  upon  which  I  and 
the  Teachers'  college  mother  agreed.  I 
was  willing  that  the  rockers  should  be 
there  as  a  sort  of  sop  to  history,  but  I  did 
not  mean  them  to  be  used.  But  you 
couldn't  make  Crumbs'  grandmother  nor 
the  Irish  nurse  regard  the  rockers  as 
sacred  history.  To  them,  rockers  were 


20         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

still  contemporaneous,  and  I  fear  they 
made  new  digestive  combinations  inside 
the  baby  right  along,  till  I  had  them — 
the  rockers — removed  and  given  to  the 
janitress  to  put  on  the  receptacle  in 
which  her  own  child  slept. 

I  have  said  that,  in  theory,  Crumbs 
was  expected  to  grow  up  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  flora  and  fauna  of  his  own 
and  other  countries;  and  as  nearly  as  I 
could  understand,  the  knowledge  was 
to  be  absorbed  through  his  pores  and 
from  his  earliest  infancy.  This  method 
of  taking  his  knowledge  in  through  his 
cuticle,  assimilating  it  with  his  breakfast, 
dinner,  supper  and  the  between-snacks, 
was  expected  to  make  the  path  of  learn- 
ing a  broad,  straight  way  for  him.  Also, 
he  was  to  have  as  second  nature,  a  taste 
for  the  exquisite  in  form  and  colour. 
That  was  why  the  bath-tub  had  a  gar- 
land about  it — roses  growing  with  flori- 
cultural  irregularity,  out  of  a  passion  vine, 
all  painted  in  pastel  shades.  The  hearth- 
rug had  a  dog  upon  it — a  woven-in  dog. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         21 

I  had  objected  to  nothing  that  had  been 
done  except  the  dog,  but  since  there  was 
to  be  a  dog,  I  felt  that  it  should  be  of 
some  denned  breed,  or  at  the  very  least 
a  generic  dog.  As  it  was,  it  was  a  cross 
between  a  grey-hound  and  a  spitz,  with  a 
hint  of  erstwhile  fashionable  coach-dog 
on  its  stomach.  I  think  it  was  a  well- 
beloved  aunt  with  advanced  ideas  who 
had  stood  for  these  inovations,  and  she, 
having  no  sporting  instincts,  could  not  be 
expected  to  choose  a  proper  dog  for 
Crumbs  to  turn  to  as  a  fount  of  learning. 
But  it  worried  his  father  and  me,  and  I 
felt  that,  since  the  nursery  equipment  was 
to  be  wholly  educational,  the  distressing 
spots  on  the  dog's  stomach  should  have 
been  more  regular,  perhaps  have  borne 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet.  Certainly, 
the  hearth-rug  taught  nothing  at  all 
about  dogs. 

Of  course  Crumbs  knew  no  more  of 
ornithology  at  one  year  of  age  than  I 
knew  of  the  differential  calculus,  but  his 
powers  of  observation  along  those  es- 


22         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

pecial  lines  were  stunted  a  five  years' 
growth.  Those  birds  and  things  "in 
natural  colours  "  he  had  always  with  him, 
and  they  might  as  well  have  been  fly- 
specks  on  the  wall  for  all  the  note  he 
made  of  them.  At  three  years  of  age, 
after  he  had  enjoyed  the  companionship 
of  his  father's  old  guide  for  two  weeks, 
and  had  gone  to  the  field  in  the  wagon 
with  the  dogs,  he  knew  more  about 
the  things  that  had  been  upon  his  one- 
time nursery  wall  than  Audubon  him- 
self could  have  known;  because  Felix, 
the  guide,  had  a  fancy  as  well  as  useful 
intellect.  He  knew  how  to  make  mat- 
ters of  forest  and  stream  picturesque  to 
children.  If  the  guide  had  only  been 
upon  the  nursery  wall — 

With  pastel  shades  all  about  him  from 
his  earliest  infancy,  Crumbs  developed 
a  surprising  taste  and  took  to  the  raw, 
untamed  national  colours  as  a  duck  to 
water,  even  before  he  knew  their  meaning. 
We  owned  a  camp-chair  whose  seat  was 
pinked  out  in  red,  white  and  blue,  and 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         23 

Crumbs  liked  that.  He  liked  it  tremen- 
dously, crude  as  his  colour  sense  must 
have  been,  if  one  were  to  give  preference 
to  the  nursery  resolvents  of  the  spectrum. 
I  admired  his  judgment  on  the  sly,  since, 
after  all,  there  was  some  meaning  in 
Crumbs'  choice.  One  may  give  up  mean- 
ing anything,  or  regarding  life  seriously 
after  one  has  passed  the  eightieth  year, 
but  before  then  it  is  always  well  to  regard 
cause  and  effect. 

We  fell  to  talking  baby  talk  together 
about  all  the  things  for  which  the  colours 
of  the  camp  chair  stood — about  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
Those  were  the  things  I  was  sitting  up 
nights  at  that  time  to  secure  to  Crumbs; 
and  even  at  twelve  months  he  seemed  to 
be  appreciative.  Crumbs'  father  was 
full  of  patriotism,  in  that  he  believed 
wholly  in  American  institutions,  and  yet, 
as  a  nomad  who  felt  it  the  duty  of  man- 
kind to  have  gunned  in  every  quarter 
of  the  globe,  I  had  never  known  him  to 
vote.  However,  if  his  pursuits  pre- 


24         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

vented  him  from  establishing  residence, 
he  always  used  accoutrements  of  Ameri- 
can manufacture. 

That  Crumbs'  father  did  not  vote  had 
very  greatly  distressed  me,  although  per- 
ceiving my  feeling  to  be  one  of  the 
inconsequent  vagaries  of  womankind, 
I  had  never  mentioned  it;  but  here 
now  was  Crumbs,  almost  all  mine  for 
the  present,  and  already  in  love  with 
the  national  colours  on  the  camp-chair. 
I  began  to  plan  ahead  twenty  years. 
If  he  should  vote  twice  each  election 
for  his  three-score  years,  minus  the 
first  twenty-one,  he  might  by  this  deed 
of  supererogation  make  up  for  the  negli- 
gence of  his  restless,  if  conscientious, 
father. 

Crumbs  and  I  talked  a  good  deal  about 
this.  I  think  he  began  with  that  camp- 
chair  to  assimilate  a  sense  of  the  obliga- 
tions of  good  citizenship.  When  the 
family  intruded  upon  our  causeries  and 
made  remarks,  I  went  within  the  room 
still  sacred  to  the  birds  and  beasts — "in 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         25 

natural  colours, "  stood  upon  the  hearth- 
rug dog  and  felt  comforted. 

Crumbs'  father  never  expressed  him- 
self to  any  extent  upon  the  subject  except 
once  when  Crumbs  had  achieved  his 
thirteenth  month.  Upon  that  occasion, 
while  I  was  showing  him  a  before-election 
parade  and  trying  to  demonstrate  its  lack 
of  relation  to  the  camp-stool  and  the  flag, 
Crumbs'  father  said : 

"You'll  get  notions  into  that  child's 
head  which  can  never  be  got  out."  I 
appeared  apologetic,  but  secretly,  I  re- 
joiced. 

Notwithstanding  his  early  training  in 
pastel  shades,  Crumbs  had  no  affinity 
for  aesthetics  till  one  day,  about  his  fifth 
year,  a  young  woman  whom  he  liked  ex- 
ceedingly, because  she  knew  more  about 
Indians  than  if  she  had  been  born  one, 
wore  a  resada  and  blue-coloured  gown. 
It  was  a  truly  French  combination  that 
certainly  required  a  nursery  training  to 
appreciate;  a  combination  that  ordi- 
narily needed  to  be  worked  up  to  by 


26         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

easy  stages.  She  wore  this  upon  the  day 
she  impressed  him  as  "a  awful  bully 
girl,"  and  Crumbs  tied  those  colours  to 
his  hat-band  and  stood  ready  for  the  lists 
and  her  benediction.  From  his  earliest 
breath  he  had  been  trained  into  an 
appreciation  of  the  choicest  combina- 
tions in  the  spectrum,  but  he  chose  an 
up-to-date  French  agony,  unreal  and 
unrelated,  however  you  looked  at  it;  and 
all  because  it  was  worn  by  "  a  awful  bully 
girl"  who  had  told  him  all  that  she  did 
not  know  about  Indians. 

Crumbs  was  born  a  strange  fusion  of 
the  literal  and  the  ideal.  When  we  drew 
near  to  that  second  Christmas  after 
Crumbs'  birth,  how  I  longed  to  have 
him  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  legendary 
deception  and  believe  in  Santa  Claus! 
Two  weeks  beforehand,  his  father 
achieved  the  impossible  by  converting 
the  steam-radiator  into  a  fire-place 
fallacy.  He  pounded  upon  the  steam- 
pipes  with  a  lead  pencil  to  summon  the 
spirit  of  Christmas,  then  confided  Crumbs' 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         27 

wants,  sotto  voce,  and  replied  in  a  ven- 
triloquistic  way  that  none  but  a  fond 
father  could  have  achieved  without  more 
practice. 

A  poem  of  suspiciously  personal  nature 
was  contributed  to  the  occasion  by  a 
friendly  genius  who,  year  after  year,  had 
successfully  fooled  legions  of  children 
belonging  to  his  acquaintances.  All  this 
was  done  that  Crumbs  might  revel  dur- 
ing a  few  adolescent  years  in  the  delight- 
ful, world-old  lie.  But  from  the  first, 
Crumbs  regarded  the  performance  as  a 
foolish  emprise  in  which  he  must  indulge 
the  old-folks.  We  never  really  knew 
what  he  thought  about  it  till  he  was 
three  years  old.  At  that  time  the  third 
annual  poem  was  taken  from  the  toe  of 
his  stocking  to  which  it  had  been  pinned. 
He  had  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  his  father, 
somewhat  larger  in  girth  by  two  sofa 
pillows;  and  he  heard  the  jingle  of  the 
sleigh-bells — the  entire  ritual — but  he 
exhibited  only  patience  instead  of 
pleasure. 


28         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

He  expressed  his  feelings,  character- 
istically, after  the  exhibition  was  over: 

"Don't  nobody  tare !  Santa  Claus  is  fat 
wike  the  ice-man.  Ice-man  don't  say 
whymes!"  This,  a  propos  of  the  poem. 
From  that  time,  Santa  Claus  poems 
came  only  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  August, 
birth-day  time,  and  then  in  their  sane 
and  proper  guise  of  "  advice  to  youth. " 

The  following  Christmas  I  stopped 
lying,  and  the  grown-ups  were  the  only 
ones  who  felt  badly  about  it.  Crumbs 
crawled  into  my  bed  after  that  last 
exhibition  of  steam-pipes,  bells,  Santa 
Claus  and  all,  and  said: 

"If  there  is  a  Santa  Claus,  don't  no- 
body tare!  If  you  gave  me  the  waggin  I 
could  wove  it."  I  betrayed  the  secret 
of  the  ages  upon  the  spot,  and  then  lay 
awake  for  the  next  six  months  trying 
to  reconcile  Crumbs'  literal  tendency 
with  his  imaginative  disposition.  At 
the  end  of  six  months  I  had  some- 
thing so  much  worse  to  worry  about, 
although  I  have  now  forgotten  what, 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         29 

that  until  now  the  detail  slipped  my 
mind. 

I  never  could  reconcile  Crumbs  and  his 
works,  and  early  gave  up  trying.  Any- 
way, who  wants  to  solve  a  puzzle  ?  After 
one  is  able  to  get  all  the  pigs  in  clover 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  done  with 
them.  It  is  the  man  who  takes  the 
thing  to  church  with  him,  who  sits  up 
nights  with  it  and  who  yet  never  does  get 
it  right  who  deserves  congratulation. 

During  Crumbs'  first  three  years  of 
life,  I  felt  my  responsibility  toward  pos- 
terity, and  continually  laid  up  treasures 
that  should  mark  the  several  stages  in 
Crumbs'  career  and  which  should  "make 
up"  well  in  the  event  of  a  photographic 
interview  about  his  thirty-fifth  year.  I 
expected  the  things  would  eventually 
find  their  way  to  the  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  the  British  Museum  or  the 
Smithsonian  Institute.  I  was  vague  as 
to  the  place  where  such  things  went, 
but  not  as  to  the  fact  that  I  was  assisting 
to  make  history. 


30         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

For  example :  I  put  away  the  first  thing 
that  ever  attracted  his  attention  enough 
for  him  to  make  an  intelligent  effort  with 
his  hands.  I  had  to  take  the  furniture 
apart  to  get  it  because  it  was  the  brass 
knob  on  the  arm  of  a  rocking  chair.  I 
put  it  away  with  the  date,  which;  as  a 
matter  of  fact  was  a  reasonably  early 
one  for  a  child  to  "  take  notice  "  with  his 
hands;  although  his  grandmother  tells 
me  that  if  he  hadn't  taken  notice  then, 
we  might  have  considered  him  an  idiot. 
I  do  not  think  so.  Possibly  it  was  time 
for  him  to  take  notice,  but  he  did  it  in  a 
way  different  from  other  children. 

At  the  time  I  was  having  the  chair 
taken  apart,  Crumbs'  father  said  that  it 
would  make  the  boy  feel  like  a  fool  to 
have  his  wife  and  her  mother  come  across 
the  collection.  (I  had  not  mentioned 
the  British  Museum  to  his  father.)  I 
already  had  a  fairly  complete  outfit,  and 
everything  labelled.  I  had  the  entire 
night-lamp  with  the  red  chimney  which 
had  marked  Crumbs'  first  recognition  of 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         31 

anything  in  particular  except  his  meals. 
I  had  the  careful  history  of  all  of  those 
things,  and  I  rejoiced  in  them ;  but  upon 
the  occasion  of  the  brass  knob,  Crumbs' 
father  managed  to  impress  upon  me  that 
after  all  I  was  laying  up  misery  and  hu- 
miliation for  the  child.  So  one  afternoon, 
with  Crumbs  propped  up  near  me  on 
many  little  pillows,  I  got  out  all  those 
evidences  of  a  fond  foolishness,  and  before 
his  eyes  I  put  them  resolutely  from  me. 
His  father  said,  not  without  reason,  that 
if  I  continued  to  collect  things  under 
sentimental  pressure  we  should  have  to 
hire  a  warehouse  somewhere  between 
the  boy's  tenth  and  twelfth  years;  and 
by  the  time  he  was  a  full-grown  man  we 
should  have  to  move  to  some  boundless 
pampa. 

After  I  had  the  collection  adjusted  for 
the  dry-garbage  man,  Crumbs'  father 
came  home  and  asked  me  what  I  was 
doing.  When  he  found  out,  he  began 
to  look  things  over  with  an  eye  to  saving 
"  some  one  sensible  memento  "  of  Crumbs' 


32         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

infancy.  I  left  Crumbs  alone  with  his 
father — and  I  have  the  complete  col- 
lection inviolate  still. 

I  agreed  with  his  father  however,  to 
maintain  secrecy,  because  he  said  that 
to  have  such  things  hauled  out  when  a 
man  is  twenty  or  thereabouts,  together 
with  a  picture  taken  in  a  shell  with  no 
clothes  on  to  speak  of,  is  enough  to 
destroy  the  best  intentioned  man's  reso- 
lution to  be  right  rather  than  to  be  Presi- 
dent. I  was  never  taken  thus  in  a  shell 
and  do  not  understand;  but  Crumbs' 
father  was,  and  I  have  always  felt  for 
him  when  the  family  album  with  plush 
mountings  is  around. 

The  affairs  of  Crumbs'  infancy  were  so 
irregular  that  I  find  myself  unable  to 
recall  them  with  much  sequence;  which 
leads  me  to  believe  that  an  analytical 
consideration  of  myself  might  in  some 
way  account  for  the  irregularities  of 
Crumbs  and  his  Times.  However  that 
may  be,  we  had  one  thing  to  tie  to: 
there  was  no  irregularity  of  affection  to 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         33 

recall;  no  intermissions  were  there  in 
his  superficial  training.  The  worthy  in- 
cidents of  Crumbs'  training  certainly  were 
the  results  of  a  benign  fate.  His  father 
and  I  had  some  large  and  creditable 
theories  upon  the  subject  of  boy-culture, 
and  I  have  them  yet  no  doubt,  although 
it  is  years  since  I  have  made  a  search; 
but  his  father  and  I  agreed  that  our 
theories  were  altogether  too  fine  for 
everyday  use,  and  we  carefully  put  them 
aside  for  Sundays  and  holidays.  A  pro- 
pos  of  this  economy,  at  about  two 
months  old  Crumbs  fell  to  getting  inside 
his  father's  shirt  at  about  nine  of  the 
clock,  and  thus  sleeping,  he  was  per- 
ambulated about  the  house  till  all  hours. 
I  knew  it  to  be  an  irregularity  of  infant 
culture,  but  since  his  father  did  not 
mind,  Crumbs  waxed  fat,  and  I  loved  to 
see  the  procession,  I  maintained  a  reason- 
able silence. 

As  his  father  put  it:  "  If  I  were  a  poor 
workingman  who  must  be  in  the  trench 
at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  instead 


34         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  on  the  cotton  exchange  at  eleven,  or  a 
poorer  society  man  who  must  be  on  the 
tread-mill  all  the  time,  I  dare  say  this 
would  not  be  proper.  But  as  I  am  noth- 
ing on  earth  but  the  chap's  father  and 
have  no  higher  aspirations,  I  guess  he 
may  as  well  have  things  as  he  likes  them 
while  I  can  walk,  and  that  seems  to  be 
about  all  he  does  like  between  the  hours 
of  nine  at  night  and  two  in  the  morning. 
Besides,  this  doesn't  over-work  our  me- 
thod. " 

I  dare  say  if  we  really  had  any  method 
there  was  madness  in  it,  but  it  did  not 
make  Crumbs  unlovely.  As  long  as  his 
father  walked,  Crumbs  smiled;  and 
when  he  ceased  to  walk,  Crumbs  didn't 
make  any  fuss.  He  simply  ceased  to 
look  joyous,  which  was  punishment 
enough  for  us. 

In  those  days  of  Crumbs'  embryonic 
career,  his  father  and  I  were  not  well 
thought  of  by  our  friends,  yet  with  it  all 
Crumbs  was  not  a  bad  baby.  About  his 
sixth  month  the  lines  of  antiquity  had 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         35 

begun  to  leave  his  face  and  he  laughed 
from  the  inside  out.  He  was  not  very 
robust  and  was  frequently  given  to 
fevers;  but  these  things  did  not  seem 
greatly  to  disturb  his  gaiety.  His  fevers 
took  place  mostly  when  I  got  stalled  on 
the  elevated,  and  they  were  likely  to 
disappear  soon  after  my  return  home. 
Yet  Crumbs  could  not  have  been  called 
exacting. 

Since,  with  the  method  of  his  bringing 
up,  he  should  have  been  a  miserable 
little  tyrant  yet  was  not,  I  was  reminded 
to  think  him  out.  The  discrepancy 
certainly  had  to  do  with  character. 

As  time  passed,  I  knew  that  Crumbs 
had  been  born  with  the  germ  of  a  devoted 
disposition,  and  that  most  of  his  peccadil- 
los were  the  result  of  blind,  elemental 
affection. 


CHAPTER  III 

ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES 

/CERTAIN  original  tendencies  were 
^  first  made  manifest  to  me  when 
Crumbs  was  three  years  old,  and  an  as- 
sortment of  children  convened  upon  the 
occasion  of  his  birthday. 

They  were  mostly  normal  children, 
therefore  mostly  stomachs,  and  a  division 
of  the  spoils  became  a  large  and  serious 
matter.  Crumbs  was  five  years  high 
at  three  years  of  age,  with  a  long,  pliant 
muscle  against  which  the  herculean, 
knotty  muscle  of  a  five  year  old  boy  did 
not  seem  to  have  much  show.  Before 
anyone  could  interfere,  Crumbs  waived 
the  rules  of  hospitality,  possessed  himself 
of  all  the  bananas  and  rendered  himself 
inaccessible  behind  the  piano.  Under 

the  circumstances,  discretion  seemed  to 
36 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         37 

be  the  better  part,  and  the  small  fry 
were  resupplied.  Meantime  I  called 
Crumbs'  attention  to  one  very  little  girl 
who  was  in  the  throes  of  heart-break 
and  gustatory  disappointment.  With  a 
new  and  somewhat  superior  supply  be- 
fore them,  I  called  Crumbs'  attention  to 
the  fact  that  greedy  people  gather  no 
moss.  He  voiced  his  philosophy. 

"  Don't  nobody  tare! "  This  was  simply 
his  method  of  implying  that  he  was  al- 
ready possessed  of  all  that  he  could  con- 
veniently assimilate,  and  that  anybody 
else  was  welcome  to  what  he  was  indif- 
ferent to. 

Upon  the  evening  of  that  day  I 
whipped  him.  He  cried  pitiably,  and  as 
soon  as  he  could  recover  his  breath  he 
mentioned:  "Don't  nobody  tare!"  I 
knew  that  my  purpose  had  miscarried, 
and  that  I  had  discovered  another 
original  tendency  —  resistance !  Crumbs 
would  never  be  made  docile  arbitrarily. 

This  was  no  trivial  matter.  A  child 
who  can  be  whipped  into  decency  is  easy 


38         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

enough,  if  not  good  for  much;  but  a 
child  who  must  be  thought  out  represents 
ruin  or  glory,  just  as  he  stands  in  his 
clothes  at  three  years  of  age,  or  even  less ; 
and  it  doesn't  depend  upon  the  child,  but 
upon  the  men  or  women  who  handle  him. 

The  child  who  is  not  amenable  to  the 
easy  and  primitive  method  of  thrashing 
is  a  reasonable  being.  Since  he  has  begun 
to  reason  so  soon,  nine  times  out  of  ten  he 
is  the  superior  of  his  parents,  because  the 
habits  of  the  parents  have  become  the 
instinct  of  the  baby,  and  he  has  started 
where  they  left  off.  At  any  rate  this 
Darwinian  science  does  well  enough  for 
the  lay  mind  which  does  not  grasp  the 
modern  biological  fact  that  acquired 
characteristics  are  not  transmitted. 

It  occurred  to  me  upon  the  evening  of 
the  party,  that  in  the  course  of  time — say 
at  the  age  of  twenty-five  years — Crumbs 
might  find  his  banana  in  some  other 
man's  new  spring  over-coat,  and  he 
might  take  it  and  get  behind  the  piano 
as  it  were;  then  somebody  would  get 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         39 

him  out  and  Crumbs  would  be  in  gaol. 
If  that  happened,  Crumbs  would  not  be 
happy,  and  I  was  working  for  his  happi- 
ness. 

The  desire  for  something  to  which  one 
has  no  right  may  lead  to  almost  any 
place  or  anything  that  is  unpleasant,  and 
to  an  over-wrought  imaginatidn  there 
was  a  relation  between  the  bananas  of 
the  afternoon  and  the  spring  over-coat  of 
several  years  hence.  Perhaps  I  could  not 
have  applied  any  moral  code  whatever  to 
Crumbs,  if  the  application  must  have 
made  for  morals  alone,  but  there  was 
Crumbs'  happiness! 

A  love  of  right  for  its  own  sake  is  a 
development  that  belongs  exclusively 
to  civilisation.  Before  that,  we  exact 
our  own  rights  by  the  easiest  method  and 
leave  the  other  fellow  to  get  his.  By  the 
time  the  easiest  method  proves  to  be  a 
reciprocal  system,  and  "survival  of  the 
fittest "  and  "  natural  selection  "  step  in  to 
clinch  the  matter,  we  may  have  acquired, 
some  of  us,  that  instinct  which  was  the 


40         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

habit  of  a  former  generation,  and  we 
may  have  learned  blindly  to  love  right 
for  itself  alone;  but  at  most  it  is  the 
guarantee  of  training — training  but  of 
yesterday  or  to-day — and  the  only  thing 
one  can  actually  depend  upon  is  the  fun- 
damental tendency.  All  humanity  has 
one  in  common — the  tendency  to  be 
happy.  I  knew  Crumbs  would  determine 
to  be  happy.  He  could  not  be  happy 
if  he  were  in  gaol  for  ten  years.  Ergo: 
I  hastened  to  avert  the  sentence. 

About  this  period,  a  friend,  full  to  the 
brim  of  human  kindness  and  a  "before 
the  war"  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
whose  two  sons  were  living  examples  of 
glorious  mind  and  matter,  smiled  at  my 
apprehensions  and  assured  me  that  de- 
cently born  children  "went  right  in  spite 
of  the  devil  and  training.  "  This  notion, 
born  of  his  own  good  luck,  was  so  much 
more  absurd  than  my  method  that  I 
turned  to  Crumbs  himself  for  needed 
wisdom.  Thus  far  he  had  been  pretty 
nearly  the  only  one  who  had  been  able 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         41 

to  teach  me  anything;  now  his  salvation 
began  in  earnest — and  we  had  an  awful 
time. 

We  began  with  the  theory,  acknowl- 
edged by  me,  winked  at  by  Crumbs,  that 
the  Young  Carpenter  Himself,  might  have 
got  into  trouble  earlier  if  Mary  had  not 
thought  out  the  basic  proposition  of  his 
happiness.  Beyond  doubt,  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  echoed  the  tender,  child- 
hood hours  with  Mary,  when  she  involun- 
tarily did  unto  Him  as  she  would  have 
Him  do  unto  others! 

As  I  held  Crumbs  under  the  microscope 
I  knew  to  a  certainty  that  of  all  the  child- 
ren I  had  ever  known — and  they  were  not 
many,  because  until  the  present  admin- 
istration I  had  had  no  large  interest  in 
children — my  child  stood  the  best  chance 
of  getting  into  the  social  and  legal  stocks. 

Crumbs  was  self-absorbed  and  not  to 
blame  for  it.  With  the  maternal  instinct 
within  me,  I  had  taken  no  account  of  little 
children  not  my  own.  After  my  own 
child  occurred,  I  took  account  of  others 


42         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

largely  in  contrast  with  Crumbs.  I  re- 
garded it  a  blessed  privilege  to  sit  up 
nights  with  Crumbs  and  nurse  him  in  his 
illnesses,  but  I  should  not  feel  it  a  privi- 
lege to  sit  up  nights  with  some  other 
woman's  child,  although  I  certainly 
should  do  so  if  occasion  and  humanity 
demanded  it.  But  the  joys  of  healing 
and  of  creating  universal  happiness  are 
no  larger  in  me  than  in  most  people.  It 
is  the  exception  who  takes  to  the  hospital 
for  fun. 

After  a  self  dissection,  I  found  myself 
in  a  state  of  great  humility  when  I 
thought  of  Crumbs,  and  beheld  how  my 
general  defect  of  self-absorption  appeared 
in  him  as  the  specific  meanness  of 
personal  selfishness.  It  became  my  prob- 
lem to  overcome  for  him  a  ruinous  heri- 
tage, and  after  that  I  knew  no  peace. 

For  long  weeks  my  inclination  toward 
extremes  worked  itself  out  in  my  imag- 
inings, and  Crumbs'  definite  danger  took 
the  form  of  gaol  and  the  liking  for  an- 
other's new  spring  overcoat.  This 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         43 

psychical  evolution  had  begun  in  the 
spring,  hence  I  never  imagined  our  Deus 
ex  machina  to  be  a  fall  overcoat. 

In  course  of  time,  I  took  to  weeping 
spasmodically  in  the  night  at  the  ever 
recurrent  picture  of  Crumbs  at  the  bar  of 
justice,  with  the  smile  from  the  inside 
out  forever  gone.  I  even  began  to  de- 
vise ways  and  means  for  corrupting  the 
judiciary.  I  thought  at  one  time  that 
it  would  be  well  for  me  to  make  unto 
myself  friends  of  all  the  magistrates 
within  my  reach,  that  I  might  be  ready 
to  buy  Crumbs  jDff  at  the  proper  time.  I 
grew  to  thinking  that  all  the  world  might 
be  corruptible  for  Crumbs'  sake,  but  soon 
I  began  to  see  the  futility  of  such  pro- 
cedure. I  might  hope  to  lead  a  few 
honest  men  from  duty,  but  how  if  Crumbs 
were  to  be  in  Europe  when  he  coveted 
the  overcoat?  I  was  willing  to  spend 
my  life  in  suborning  justice,  but  ob- 
viously the  scheme  was  impractical,  and 
I  am  seldom  impractical,  outside  my 
imagination- 


44         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

As  the  nights  passed  after  days  of  com- 
bat with  Crumbs,  and  I  could  no  longer 
in  reason  hope  to  buy  for  him  immunity 
from  the  results  of  evil  doing,  I  began  to 
devise  ways  and  means  of  helping  him  to 
escape  his  place  of  incarceration,  after 
which  we  were  to  fly  to — but  there!  I 
abandoned  that  line :  there  is  extradition 
almost  everywhere  now. 

Be  bad — and  the  goblins'll  get  you! 
That  was  the  whole  of  it.  That  was 
about  all  the  growth  out  of  my  fearsome 
thoughts. 

After  that  I  wept  at  night,  while 
mentally  preparing  good  things  for 
Crumbs  to  eat,  which  I  should  carry  to 
him  in  the  penitentiary.  About  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  it  was 
Crumbs'  infant  habit  to  turn  over  and 
reach  out  of  his  crib  to  find  my  face,  I 
could  no  longer  endure  the  agony  of  my 
imaginings,  and  I  fell  to  waking  him,  as 
the  little  hand  plunked  down  upon  me  in 
the  night,  and  begging  him  to  be  a  good 
boy. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        45 

For  a  time  Crumbs  only  looked  at  me 
sleepily  and  slept  again;  in  the  second 
stage  he  mumbled  something,  put  his 
hand  on  my  eyes,  said  "  Kyin  ? "  and  slept 
serenely;  but  in  the  third  stage  Crumbs 
sat  up,  stared  at  me  and  said:  "I'll  be 
good.  Don't  ky.  Don't  lets  nobody 
tare!" 

Thus  Crumbs  formed  the  habit  of 
waking  regularly  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  a  habit  which  prevailed  for  two 
years  and  more,  which  shows  how  much 
harm  a  woman  can  do  if  she  tries.  Long 
months  after  the  horrid  chimera  of 
Crumbs  in  dreadful  clothes  with  "no  sun 
or  moon,  no  morn,  no  noon,"  but  always 
after  that  "  November,  " — when  all  this 
had  left  me,  Crumbs  still  sat  up  in  his  bed 
each  night,  fully  awake  with  his  hands 
upon  my  breast,  leaning  over  me  to  say: 
"I'll  never  take  nuffin'  of  nobody's,  so 
don't  you  cry!" 

In  time  the  assurance  became  mechani- 
cal, Crumbs  immediately  turning  over 
and  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the  just,  I  nod- 


46         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

ding  at  him  half  awake,  in  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  attentions,  but  on  the  whole 
he  might  have  had  a  worse  habit. 

The  "before  the  war"  friend,  who 
knew  more  or  less  of  my  problem,  ex- 
plained to  me  with  considerable  elabora- 
tion that  it  was  folly  to  put  such  notions 
into  a  child's  head.  It  was  quite  enough 
to  make  a  thief  of  him,  or  if  he  couldn't 
become  a  thief,  it  was  enough  to  "make 
him  imaginative. " 

Well,  Crumbs  could  not  at  the  very 
best  have  been  called  unimaginative — 
imagination  was  an  original  tendency 
of  the  most  opulent  sort  with  him — so 
along  that  line  I  could  not  have  done 
much  harm.  Besides,  it  was  not  any 
part  of  my  business  to  kill  his  imagin- 
ation, but  rather  to  foster  it  and  help 
him  to  imagine  the  right  things.  For 
the  rest:  I  have  never  been  able  to  de- 
cide whether  that  good  friend  was  right 
or  not,  because  after  all,  Crumbs  formed  a 
habit — in  his  sleep,  as  it  was— of  letting 
other  people's  things  alone,  so  far  as  he 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         47 

was  able  to  distinguish  between  which 
was  his,  which  mine,  and  which  the  ex- 
clusive property  of  others. 

I  am  almost  certain  that  in  time  he 
would  have  learned  to  know  what  a 
thief  was,  even  if  I  had  not  told  him ;  and 
if  his  initial  acquaintance  had  been  a 
nice  gentlemanly,  genial  thief,  Crumbs' 
love  of  good  fellowship,  which  he  so 
strongly  developed  later,  might  have 
made  matters  worse  than  did  our  early, 
post-midnight  sessions.  Given  as  a 
basis,  love  and  a  sense  of  comraderie,  a 
boy  may  turn  out  to  be  almost  anything 
from  a  bad  thief  to  a  good  husband. 

I  have  never  desired  to  make  Crumbs 
shudder,  but  since  he  must  shudder 
more  or  less  as  he  goes  through  life,  I 
have  always  given  the  preference  to  the 
undesirable,  rather  than  to  the  cold  bath. 

He  grew  to  identify  badness  with 
thieves,  with  midnight  tears  and  a  close 
enfolding  of  his  small  body ;  and,  finally, 
with  the  softest  hours  when  he  learned 
to  think  sorrowfully,  rather  than  resent- 


4S        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

fully,  of  thieves.  But  there  again,  Crumbs' 
original  tendency  toward  Original  Sin 
stepped  in  and  distracted  me.  A  soft 
pity  for  wrong-doing  was  hardly  suited 
to  Crumbs'  disposition.  It  worked  both 
ways.  Crumbs,  himself,  loved  to  be 
pitied,  because  that  meant  to  him,  though 
undefined,  an  element  of  sensuous  hap- 
piness, a  close  folding  of  the  arms  about 
him  and  introspective  conversations — 
and  Crumbs  thought  himself  quite  well 
worth  talking  about.  It  meant  ultimate 
love-feasts,  and  that  reactionary  hap- 
piness known  only  to  ill-advised  lovers 
who  quarrel. 

I  surmised  that  Crumbs  might  be  cap- 
able of  taking  the  spring  overcoat  merely 
for  the  human  love  of  pity  and  celebra- 
tion. I  ought  then  to  leave  out  of  his  hor- 
izon the  gentle  quality  of  mercy,  while 
I  must  initiate  him  into  stern  hatred  of 
the  doers,  as  well  as  the  doings  of  evil. 
As  I  did  not  want  him  to  go  to  gaol,  I 
gave  precedence  to  the  latter  method,  and 
trusted  the  compromise  to  time  and  luck. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        40 

Crumbs  grew  merry  or  melancholy 
along  such  immoderate  lines— but  he 
loved  me.  He  spurned  his  friends  when 
he  did  not  want  them,  but  demanded 
their  instant  attention  when  he  grew 
sociable;  and  as  this  seemed  to  me 
only  another  form  of  taking  the  spring 
overcoat,  it  became  a  detail  to  be  looked 
after.  Hence,  I  fell  into  being  at  Crumbs' 
command  never  at  those  times  when 
he  sought  me.  I  frequently  reminded  him 
at  such  moments,  that  I  then  felt  as  he 
had  felt  the  hour  previously,  when  I  had 
longed  for  him  very  much.  It  took  a 
troublous  season  for  the  meaning  of  this 
to  find  its  way  to  Crumbs'  understanding, 
and  it  cost  me  considerable  self-denial, 
because  as  a  fact  I  was  always  ready  for 
Crumbs,  whether  he  wanted  me  or  not. 
But  in  time  he  discovered  that  one  secret 
of  happiness  was  reciprocity,  and  that 
people  frequently  paid  for  happiness  by 
making  decent  compromises  as  they 
went  along. 


50         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

It  began  thus,  but  later  on,  force  of 
habit  robbed  such  methods  of  directly 
selfish  purpose,  and  fairness  became  as 
much  the  order  of  the  day  as  luncheon 
was. 

It  saddened  me  to  know  that  Crumbs 
was  not  exceptional,  and  that  he  did  not 
love  propriety  of  action  for  its  own  sake; 
but  gradually  I  became  so  eternally 
thankful  that  he  was  decent  for  any 
reason  whatever,  that  I  forgot  to  exper- 
ience regret.  Still,  Crumbs  was  born 
with  the  excessive  advantage  of  being  a 
loving  chap;  and  maybe  if  he  had  not 
had  me  to  bring  up,  while  I  was  assisting 
him  to  form  his  character,  he  might  have 
fared  exceptionally  well.  His  respon- 
sibility was  somewhat  greater  than  mine, 
because,  if  he  did  not  early  enough  get 
me  started  in  the  way  I  should  go  for  his 
best  good,  it  was  almost  certain  to  kill 
me.  Maybe  it  is  good  for  a  child,  who 
must  be  continually  occupied,  to  have 
the  responsibility  of  his  mother. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BENDING   THE   TWIG 

/CRUMBS  probably  boasted  a  con- 
^•^  stitutional  robustness,  since  he 
knew  little  illness  that  could  be  traced 
to  a  source,  but  there  was  a  trick  of 
sudden  rises  in  temperature,  of  dark 
circles  that  suddenly  made  their  appear- 
ance beneath  his  eyes,  of  quick-coming 
lassitudes,  followed  by  surprising  recu- 
peration, and  each  phase  bore  the  mark 
of  actuality,  was  no  pathological  affec- 
tation. These  moments  of  abnormal 
physical  mood  became  matters  of  con- 
tinual nervous  anxiety  to  me;  and 
Crumbs'  nonchalant  watchword  "Don't 
nobody  tare  ! "  frequently  spoken  with  a 
grin  and  with  whimsicality  of  tone,  while 
his  condition  was  febrile  and  obviously 
wrong,  never  helped  me  much. 


§2         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Somebody  one  day  whispered  "regu- 
larity of  habit,"  and  I  was  impressed. 
Crumbs  was  not  yet  so  nearly  lost  that  he 
could  not  be  redeemed;  hence,  in  his 
second  year  we  began  to  retire  and  to  take 
sustenance  along  regular  lines.  Crumbs 
seemed  to  like  that  way  as  well  as  any 
other,  but  it  made  no  difference  whatever 
in  his  oft-recurring  nervous  tempers.  I 
was  an  all-night  worker,  and  when  I  did 
not  work,  neither  could  I  sleep,  hence  it 
was  my  habit  to  encourage  late  rising  in 
myself. 

Those  solicitous  friends,  who  were 
patiently  watching  our  swift  retrogres- 
sion, and  who  never  doubted  that  I  was 
taking  Crumbs  to  perdition  long  before 
the  time  appointed  of  God,  told  me  that 
early  rising  as  well  as  early  bedtime  was 
the  proper  caper  for  all  well-appointed 
children. 

I  reminded  them  that  Crumbs  was  not 
well-appointed,  and  that  frequently  he 
mentioned  in  the  night  that  he  was 
"  tryin '  to  sweep,  but  it  aint  no  use  and — 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         53 

don't  nobody  tare!"  I  explained  that 
I  approved  of  late  rising,  if  one  could  do 
it,  but  they  assured  me  early  rising 
would  help  to  "  appoint "  him.  Perhaps 
they  were  right;  I  never  tried  it.  I  be- 
lieved that  a  very  little  and  very  active 
chap  was  not  far  enough  advanced  along 
the  unwholesome  way,  either  to  exper- 
ience or  to  affect  laziness.  I  had  fur- 
tively watched  Crumbs  suffer  poignantly 
toward  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  his 
instinctive  effort  to  keep  still  till  I  should 
open  my  eyes,  and  I  did  not  believe  he 
was  going  to  fall  down  on  the  breakfast 
hour,  as  it  were,  unless  he  needed  to. 

Hence,  it  became  understood  between 
him  and  me,  that  nobody  in  all  this  world 
was  ever  to  be  awakened  by  either  of  us, 
unless  that  unfortunate  person  was  going 
to  take  a  train. 

Now  this  matter  of  regularity,  if  quite 
unregulated,  has  its  disadvantages;  and 
hard  and  fast  rules  are  about  as  un- 
pleasant and  unprofitable  as  hard  and 
fast  people.  In  time,  a  kind  fate  demon- 


54        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

strated  to  me  how  much  regularity  was 
deadly  to  this  special  boy,  and  I  was  not 
bringing  up  any  other  boy — just  Crumbs. 

A  night  came  when  Crumbs  said  he 
felt  that  he  could  not  go  to  bed.  I  did 
not  know  enough  at  that  time  to  take 
him  at  his  word,  and  I  thought  he  could 
go  to  bed  if  he  was  helped.  During  the 
evening  small  complainings  came  to  me 
from  Crumbs'  bed,  and  with  the  new 
consequentiality  born  of  an  approved 
purpose  I  replied  tranquilly,  decisively, 
sternly  as  the  affair  progressed.  Crumbs 
suffered  with  resignation  till  ten  o'clock, 
which  must  have  been  an  eternity  to  him, 
and  then  he  cursed  me.  He  knew  the 
words :  there  was  the  banana  man  at  the 
corner,  hoi  polloi  all  about,  and  Crumbs 
always  wide  awake  and  receptive. 

Rounded  out  cursings,  full  of  vigour, 
hot  from  the  griddle  and  coming  from  a 
little  child  are  awesome  things.  Some- 
thing helpfuller  than  the  advice  of  regular 
and  childless  people  counselled  me  to  be 
silent. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         55 

It  was  a  difficult  night  for  Crumbs 
and  me.  Crumbs  had  risen  from  his  bed, 
had  stood  before  me,  shrieked,  called  me 
names,  then  thrown  himself  upon  the 
floor  and  kicked.  His  appearance  was 
that  of  a  dejected  fiend — blue  eyes  gone 
black,  and  a  purple  face.  When  ex- 
haustion came  upon  him,  I  laid  him  in 
his  bed  and  lying  beside  him  said,  "we 
are  tired,  Crumbs;  let's  you  and  I  go  to 
sleep. "  So  Crumbs  slept  with  a  cool 
cloth  upon  his  head,  instead  of  with  a 
hot  spot  upon  his  anatomy — which  I 
fancy  would  have  been  more  regular  but 
less  helpful. 

The  next  morning  he  slept  late  and 
awoke  white  and  hollow-eyed,  and  that 
day  I  begged  his  pardon.  I  felt  that  I 
had  been  a  bad  mother  to  him  and  I  said 
so.  Crumbs  was  a  gentleman,  because 
in  that  hour,  with  my  sins  heavy  upon 
me,  he  said:  "  You're  a  good  Muver — 'n' 
I'll  kill  everybody.  You're  kyin', — Oh 
don't,  DON'T  lets  nobody  tare!"  his 
methods  were  crude  but  his  feeling  was 


56         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

along  the  right  lines.  Thereafter,  I  fre- 
quently confessed  my  faults  to  Crumbs, 
but  his  chivalry  never  failed.  Upon  one 
such  occasion  an  original  tendency — love — 
for  the  moment  got  the  better  of  him, 
but  honesty  prevailed,  in  the  end,  and 
he  said  with  evident  distress: 

"  I  guess  mebby  you  were  bad  because 
you  just  said  'No,  you  can't  go, — don't 
bover  me, '  wifout  thinkin'  it  over.  I 
guess  mebby  you  were  bad;  but — don't 
lets  nobody  tare. "  So  if  honesty  pre- 
vailed, yet  love  tempered  another  beauti- 
ful original  tendency — a  tendency  to  be 
honest  in  his  own  thought  at  the  expense 
of  my  feelings. 

After  that  night  when  regularity  so 
miscarried,  we  were  less  well  appointed; 
but  I  determined  to  save  Crumbs,  even  at 
the  expense  of  my  friends'  approval. 
That  night's  fearful  exhibition  marked 
time  for  us,  and  my  imaginative  excesses 
again  took  hold  on  me:  I  had  witnessed 
another  of  Crumbs'  possibilities.  Again 
he  was  twenty-five  years  old ;  it  was  no 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         57 

longer  a  matter  of  the  spring  overcoat 
but  of  murder,  and  my  sense  of  respon- 
sibility sorely  afflicted  me. 

After  Crumbs  had  recovered  from  the 
nervous  exacerbation  of  that  night,  to 
him  it  was  all  as  if  it  had  never  been ;  but 
to  me  the  hour  was  for  a  long  time  pres- 
ent. His  outbreak  had  been  simply  phys- 
ical; he  had  made  no  childish  objection 
to  going  to  bed  at  the  accustomed  hour; 
he  had  been  willing  enough  to  sleep  at 
the  established  time,  but  in  the  grasp 
of  nervous  irritation  he  only  did  not  kill 
me  because  he  could  not. 

To  add  to  our  troubles  there  rose  upon 
our  horizon  the  maiden  lady  without  any 
nerves  for  other  people,  but  a-plenty 
for  herself;  and  the  lady  with  the  children 
who  were  too  good  to  be  true;  and  the 
man-friend  with  more  good  feeling  than 
discretion  who  laughed  when  Crumbs' 
soul  was  in  danger,  and  who  said  in 
Crumbs'  presence:  "  He's  a  corker. 
He'll  come  out  in  the  wash!"  And  the 
lady  whose  sons  only  awaited  the  coming 


58         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  the  years  when  they  should  turn  high- 
waymen; and  the  helpless  lady  who 
"doesn't  know  what  to  advise  —  she 
really  doesn't!"  Yes,  she  came  also. 
All,  all  of  these  and  more  came  between 
Crumbs  and  me,  till  finally  we  both  felt  we 
were  fighting  for  each  others  very  life. 

Crumbs  and  I  began  to  feel  that  we 
were  not  proper  people,  not  fit  for  human 
society;  and  one  day  he  said  of  a  con- 
scientious friend: 

"  I  fink  she  don't  wike  me  "  (still  short 
on  1's)  "I  fink  so  because  when  I  said 
'hello!'  she  just  wooked. " 

Crumbs  was  right.  He  had  got  him- 
self disliked.  I  do  not  know  how  it  made 
him  feel  at  this  period,  but  I  know  how  I 
felt  about  it.  I  suspect  it  made  him  feel 
like  going  out  and  killing  a  policeman 
because  he  sniffed  when  he  told  me,  and 
humped  his  shoulders  in  a  way  he  had 
whenever  he  came  in  conjunction  with 
his  critics.  There  again  was  that  orig- 
inal tendency  toward  resistance. 

I  suggested  to  him  that  possibly  we 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         59 

were  not  pleasant  people  to  have  much 
to  do  with,  and  I  have  always  felt  that 
at  that  moment  Crumbs'  loyality  helped 
to  save  the  day. 

"  Folks' d  better  wike  you  er  I'll  fix 
'em,"  he  remarked,  and  the  remark 
afforded  me  a  desired  opportunity.  He 
and  I  had  a  talk,  and  it  was  decided  that 
if  I  were  to  be  made  acceptable  to  others, 
he  would  have  to  labour  in  my  interests. 
I  expressed  a  doubt  that  I  could  be  be- 
loved of  my  own  ability.  I  also  ex- 
pressed an  inspired  confidence  in  his 
ability  to  make  people  endure  my  pres- 
ence for  the  sake  of  having  his  charming 
manners  forever  before  them.  I  told 
him  how  to  go  about  making  this  strictly 
true. 

By  Crumbs'  third  year  we  had  fallen 
upon  grave  ways  and  pale  misfortune: 
Crumbs'  father  had  become  an  invalid, 
was  no  longer  near  us,  and  we  felt  there 
was  an  end  of  cakes  and  ale  for  us.  I 
knew  then  that  Crumbs  and  I  were  to 
grow  up  together  as  best  we  could.  He 


60         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

had  long  since  made  an  impression  on 
my  original  disposition,  as  I  on  his,  and  I 
believed  there  was  hope  for  us  both.  • 

Crumbs  and  I  had  moved  away  from 
the  house  with  the  pastel  nursery,  the 
creatures  in  "natural  colours"  and  the 
woven-in  dog,  and  about  the  only  thing 
we  took  along  out  of  the  wreck  was  the 
bath-tub  with  its  garlands,  that  Crumbs 
might  some  day  have  his  attention  called 
to  how  flowers  did  not  grow.  I  had 
learned  to  wish  sometimes  that  Crumbs 
did  not  laugh,  nor  love,  nor  have  his 
spiritual  being  from  the  inside  out,  but  in 
some  more  superficial  fashion. 

We  began  anew  and  pretty  much  all 
alone,  a  short-handed,  half-crippled  re- 
gime, but  Crumbs  was  a  great  moral 
stimulant.  When  I  looked  sad,  he  looked 
sadder,  would  have  a  fever,  or  indigestion ; 
hence  it  became  my  habit  to  look  sad 
only  when  I  had  entered  into  my  closet 
and  shut  the  door.  This  habit  of  smiling 
for  the  baby  was  more  potent  than 
"coughing  for  the  lady,"  and  after  a 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         61 

while  I  found  myself  looking  superficially 
pleasant,  even  in  the  closet  behind 
closed  doors.  Tf  this  Sunny- Jim  habit 
had  its  drawbacks,  it  had  its  advantages : 
being  expected  to  frivol  for  my  friends, 
I  found  it  after  all  better  to  laugh  than 
be  sighing. 

Yes,  during  this  transition  period 
Crumbs  got  himself  disliked.  He  had 
no  manners  but  bad  ones,  and  this  was 
my  fault,  not  his.  We  were  mostly 
alone,  save  for  a  maid-of-all-work,  and 
my  occupation  distracted  my  thoughts 
from  those  details  of  conduct  which 
Crumbs  had  a  right  to  expect  me  to 
attend  to  for  him.  He  frequently  took 
his  meals  alone,  and  when  we  were  to- 
gether the  joy  of  listening  to  his  chatter 
was  so  great  that  in  the  absence  of  all 
cause  to  silence  him,  I  permitted  him  to 
chatter  on.  It  was  harmless  enough  in 
itself,  yet  deadly,  because  we  could  not 
always  be  alone.  When  Crumbs  began 
to  get  us  disliked,  and  we  entered  into 
secret  session  to  discuss  the  matter,  he 


62         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

suggested  that  we  go  "way  off  some- 
where where  they 's  just  dogs,  'n'  do  every- 
fing  what  we  wikes. " 

This  was  a  serious  matter.  I  beheld 
the  soil  in  which  misanthrophy  should 
one  time  sprout.  Instead  of  less  of 
human  society  and  more  of  dogs',  C  umbs 
must  have  more  of  the  former,  because, 
like  someone  else,  the  more  he  saw  of 
men  the  better  he  liked  dogs. 

Nobody  but  f uli-grown  robustious  men 
really  wanted  Crumbs.  He  had  become 
a  horror  to  women,  and  the  surprises  he 
continually  had  in  store  for  them  got  on 
their  nerves.  He  talked  too  much;  he 
was  'fresh, '  he  told  me  the  janitor  said, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  janitor 
was  a  man  of  judgment.  He  could 
only  get  on  with  men,  and  a  particular 
sort  at  that. 

This  was  first  revealed  to  me  just  be- 
fore his  fifth  birthday,  while  we  were  in 
the  country.  There  his  intimate  was 
the  skipper  of  his  uncle's  sailing  boat. 
Crumbs  greatly  enjoyed  the  man's  society 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         63 

and  the  skipper  was  good  enough  to 
tolerate  Cmmbs;  indeed  I  think  he  had 
almost  as  good  a  time  out  of  the  friend- 
ship thus  established  as  Crumbs  had. 
Among  other  things  he  taught  Crumbs 
to  spell  phonetically.  The  skipper  was 
good  natured;  but  one  unfortunate  day, 
when  I  had  begun  to  feel  that  something 
must  happen  to  Crumbs  and  happen 
quick — something  of  a  nature  that  women 
cannot  do,  or  that  they  do  not  know  how 
to  do — on  that  day,  I  was  sitting  not  far 
from  where  the  boat  lay  anchored  and 
Crumbs  and  his  friend  were  aboard  her. 
I  inferred  that  the  man  was  trying  to  find 
repose  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  while 
Crumbs  had  a  high-noon  vitality  that 
interfered. 

All  I  heard  of  the  session  was  from  the 
skipper: 

"  Now  don't  you  get  fresh,  young  man, 
or  I'll  just  naturally  chuck  you  over- 
board, "  and  the  tone  implied  busi- 
ness. Crumbs  was  unused  to  such 
treatment.  Most  people  handled  him 


64         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

gently  in  deference  to  me,  but  also,  they 
mostly  avoided  me  at  those  times  when 
Crumbs  was  not  asleep,  and  he  was 
almost  never  asleep  any  more.  That 
hot  July  day  as  I  sat  within  earshot 
of  the  boat,  my  presence  unrevealed, 
I  hoped  that  one  man  was  going  to  be  as 
good  as  his  word.  I  felt  that  action 
from  such  a  source,  without  other  animus 
than  the  man's  determination  to  maintain 
his  right  to  be  let  alone  at  certain  times, 
would  help  us  back  into  the  straight  and 
narrow  way.  The  silence  of  surprise 
followed  the  threat,  and  then  Crumbs 
jeered,  aggressively. 

It  was  all  over  in  a  minute.  One 
splash  was  followed  by  another  and  yet 
another,  and  then  I  beheld  Crumbs 
standing  in  the  trailer,  very  wet,  very 
much  surprised  and  somewhat  choked. 
While  being  set  ashore,  he  did  not  enter 
into  conversation,  but  rid  himself  of  the 
superfluous  water  that  had  entered  his 
system  as  best  he  could,  and  without  any 
help  from  his  practical  friend.  I  had 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         65 

time  to  get  home  before  Crumbs  was  well 
on  his  way  from  the  dock. 

I  waited  developments  and  they  ar- 
rived with  Crumbs.  He  trailed  into  the 
house  wet,  thoughtful  and  looking  foolish. 

"What's  oedema?"  he  asked.  I  said, 
"Why?" 

"  That's  what  I  got— the  doctor  waffed 
and  said  so. "  He  had  encountered  the 
village  physician  on  his  way  home. 
Even  drowning  could  not  separate 
Crumbs  and  his  curiosity. 

"  Did  you  fall  into  the  water,  Crumbs? 
Oh,  my!"  I  cut  the  water-logged  knot 
in  his  shoe-strings.  Crumbs  gasped  out 
something  that  might  have  meant  any- 
thing while  I  wrung  the  water  out  of  his 
pants. 

"My  darling  child!  To  think  you 
might  have  been  drowned!" 

"  No  I  mightn't.  " 

"Why — to  fall  into  the  water  like 
this—" 

"Didn't  fall  in;  chucked — damn  it! 
Didn't  saynuffin,'"  he  added  hurriedly, 


66         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

while  he  became  as  much  too  red  as  he 
had  been  too  white.  He  did  not  have 
the  habit  of  bad  language.  I  looked 
my  disapproval,  and  he  muttered  again: 
"  Didn't  say  nuffin ',  "  and  squirmed  his 
toes. 

"  How  did  you  get  into  the  water  ? "  I 
rough- towelled  him. 

"Billy  chucked  me!" 

"  I  shall  see  Billy  the  minute  I  get  dry 
clothes  on  you.  I'll  see  what  he  means 
by  this. "  Crumbs  furtively  regarded 
me,  but  was  silent.  With  the  last  button 
of  a  dry  suit  of  clothes,  he  said : 

"  I  fink  I  don't  want  you  to  see  what 
Billy  means  by  this;  he's  awful!" 

"  I  shall  call  him  to  account  at  once, " 
I  said  and  started  for  the  door.  Then 
Crumbs  frantically  clutched  my  hand: 

"  You'd  better  not  bover  Billy. " 

"Did  you  bother  him?" 

"Well — he  just  chucked  me — 'n* 
didn't  say  nuffin '.  "  Thus  Billy  accom- 
plished more  in  one  hot,  mid-day  minute 
than  I  had  been  able  to  accomplish  in  the 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         67 

three  months  of  our  ostracism.  Yet 
Crumbs  would  rather  have  pleased  me 
than  Billy;  but  the  outlook  was  bran- 
new  to  him.  All  life  now  presented  the 
aspect  of  a  ducking  if  he  should  continue 
to  impose  upon  people — some  people; 
and  evidently  he  would  not  be  able  to  tell 
just  which  people  were  safe.  The  in- 
cident was  marked  with  good  results  for 
many  a  day ;  indeed,  Crumbs  never  again 
returned  entirely  to  his  old  methods. 
I  passed  Billy  in  the  road  later  in  the  day 
and  Crumbs  was  with  me.  Crumbs 
looked  away,  but  Billy  and  I  looked  at 
each  other — as  Greek  Augurs  used  to  do,  I 
dare  say. 

The  season  developed  new  troubles 
every  week.  Crumbs  was  born  with  a 
capacity  to  see  all  sides  of  a  question ;  an 
intellectual  faculty  upon  which  to  build 
as  on  a  rock;  but  also,  he  was  born  with 
a  fixed  determination  to  acknowledge 
no  side  but  his  own,  and  this  reduced  his 
rock  foundation  to  shifting  sand. 

There  was  the  efficient  intelligence  to 


68         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

appeal  to,  but  likewise  a  temperamental 
obstinacy  to  be  overcome. 

His  was  that  mental  condition  which 
goes  to  render  the  dialectician  invincible : 
he  could  perceive  with  his  peculiar  flash- 
light intelligence,  the  strong  points  of 
another's  argument,  and  thus  prepare 
to  meet  them  by  strengthening  the  weak 
points  of  his  own. 


CHAPTER  V 

INDIRECT   METHODS 

TN  his  third  year,  when  Crumbs  and  I 
were  first  left  to  our  own  devices,  the 
demand  for  moral  invention  on  my 
part  became  oppressive.  Necessity  again 
proved  herself  a  mother,  and  upon  this 
occasion  she  brought  forth  twins.  Some- 
body gave  Crumbs  a  cat  and  a  dog.  The 
cat  died  young,  much  to  my  satisfaction, 
but  the  dog  lived  to  fulfill  his  mission. 

The  dog  was  a  good  deal  like  the 
woven-in  dog,  and  had  as  many  different 
kinds  of  breed  as  New  England  is  sup- 
posed to  have  weather,  but  it  passed  for 
a  fox  terrier.  In  recognition  of  Crumbs' 
inherent  sporting  proclivities,  I  had  the 
mutt's  tail  docked,  named  him  Mulvaney 
and  hoped  for  the  best.  Crumbs  already 
knew  Mulvaney  in  his  literary  place, 


70         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

more  or  less — those  portions  of  him  that 
could  be  turned  to  account  best,  just 
before  bedtime,  when  I  was  expected  to 
"  fink  of  somethin'."  Many  of  the  things 
I  thought  of  under  these  circumstances, 
elicited  the  characteristic  "  don't  nobody 
tare!"  which  was  Crumbs  politest  way 
of  letting  me  down  easy  when  I  fell  short 
of  the  mark.  But  Mulvaney  had  always 
found  favour.  Hence,  Mulvaney  for  the 
dog. 

Being  a  nervous  person,  much  occupied 
and  preoccupied  and  not  over-fond  of 
live-stock  under  foot,  the  impulse  to  cuff 
the  dog  for  its  persistence  in  wrong-doing 
was  strong  within  me,  but  this  impulse 
gave  way  to  the  fear  of  arousing  in 
Crumbs  some  untrained,  unnatural  im- 
pulse to  cuff  his  finest  fate.  Thus  I  fell 
to  reasoning  with  the  dog,  and  it  is  sur- 
prising how  like  an  obsession  this  love 
of  ratiocination  may  become.  It  is  the 
vanity  in  us:  one  runs  on  and  on,  drunk 
with  one's  high-flown  capacity. 

I  noticed  that  if  I  reasoned  with  Mul- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         71 

vaney  only  in  Crumbs'  presence,  and 
cuffed  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  door,  I 
was  likely  to  fall  from  the  moral  tight- 
rope I  found  it  necessary  to  walk;  and 
thus  in  time,  as  a  matter  of  precaution,  I 
found  myself  becoming  almost  as  reason- 
able a  being  as  I  wished  Crumbs  to  be- 
come. 

Bye  and  bye,  the  terrier  became  a 
great  educational  medium  for  his  master. 
By  a  method  of  indirection  I  managed 
to  present  certain  problems  of  conduct  to 
Crumbs  without  hurting  his  feelings,  and 
without  greatly  crippling  the  dog.  For 
instance,  when  the  dog  mutilated  a  folio 
of  music  I  first  reasoned  with  him,  in 
Crumbs'  presence,  upon  his  lack  of  self- 
control.  I  pointed  out  to  him  that 
wrong  doing  inevitably  brought  punish- 
ment, and  further  to  demonstrate  my 
point  I  took  Mulvaney  out  and  scientific- 
ally cuffed  him.  Thus,  I  made  Crumbs, 
through  the  dog,  understand  a  good 
many  things:  how  essential  it  was  for  a 
dog — possibly  a  person — to  learn  self- 


72         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

control  in  the  interests  of  himself  and 
society. 

All  little  children,  even  those  of  aver- 
age intelligence,  love  to  listen,  if  facts  be 
made  to  appear  picturesque  or  dramatic 
to  them,  and  in  their  conduct  they  in- 
variably reflect  what  they  have  observed. 
It  would  have  been  impossible  for  me  to 
keep  in  hand  another  human  being  thus 
to  serve  as  a  daily  moral  example  to 
Crumbs ;  impossible,  even  if  it  would  not 
have  been  truly  degrading  to  Crumbs  to 
witness  the  correction  of  another  in  all 
respects  like  himself.  But  a  dog,  a  good, 
self-sacrificing  dog  like  Mulvaney,  was 
amenable.  Crumbs  loved  the  dog  and 
could  be  made  to  feel  his  own  responsibil- 
ity for  Mulvaney's  good  conduct. 

Thus  it  fell  out  that  Crumbs  not  in- 
frequently evolved  certain  ethical  notions 
of  his  own,  by  no  means  unworthy, 
if  unique,  and  these  he  imparted  to 
Mulvaney  for  Mulvaney's  betterment. 
In  short,  the  dog  became  a  medium  by 
which  I  might  continually  put  before  his 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         73 

master  much  that  it  was  good  for  him  to 
know  of  generosity,  of  kindness,  of  justice 
and  of  good  sense.  The  cur-dog  pro- 
vided a  sort  of  moral  atmosphere  most 
helpful  to  Crumbs  and  me. 

It  was  not  always  restful  nor  conven- 
ient to  devote  so  much  time  to  a  small 
cur-dog,  even  though  the  results  were  all 
for  his  master ;  but  it  was  as  restful  as  any 
other  method  of  living  up  to  a  son's 
future  glory  through  his  present  well- 
being. 

Seven  years  is  none  too  much  time, 
if  improved  without  ceasing,  in  which  to 
discover  a  child's  tendencies  toward 
Original  Sin  and  Original  Saintliness;  to 
overcome  or  neutralise  the  former,  or  *  to 
strengthen  the  latter.  Fully  as  close  at- 
tention and  application  are  required  in 
making  a  child's  character,  as  in  making 
a  cake.  In  the  one  case,  the  comestible 
can  be  purveyed  by  the  baker,  while  the 
commodity  of  character,  which  may  be 
traded  upon,  though  neither  bought  nor 
sold,  is  the  mother's  own  affair  and  re- 


74        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

sponsibility,  assuming  that  she  has  not 
brought  into  the  world  a  child  with  a 
moral  lesion. 

If  one  takes  her  responsibility  toward 
her  children  and  society  seriously  enough, 
she  will  grow  to  regard  all  the  conven- 
iences of  an  up-to-date  civilisation  as  ex- 
isting directly,  and  for  the  single  purpose 
of  her  own  child's  development.  When  the 
itinerant  "mender" — one  of  civilisation's 
new  glories — comes  in  on  Saturday,  it 
gives  woman  a  new,  systematised  vaca- 
tion of  a  few  hours  for  the  good  of  her 
children.  The  ready  service  of  a  lux- 
urious civilisation  adds  half  a  day  to  her 
twenty-four  hours ;  thus  again  Fate  has 
given  to  her  children  additional  opportu- 
nities through  their  mother.  One  may 
"  have  in  "  everything  but  a  mother.  One 
may  "have  in"  intelligence,  specialised 
ability,  general  knowledge,  discretion,  pre- 
cise care,  but  one  may  not  "  have  in  "  the 
one  element  that  makes  the  application  of 
all  else  certain  and  advantageous.  One 
may  not  "have  in"  that  confidence 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         75 

which  exists  between  all  women  and 
their  children  unless  one  party  or  the 
other  be  abnormal.  The  application  of 
Maternal  Science  depends  less  upon  a 
woman's  intellectual  capacity  than  upon 
her  amount  of  patience  and  self-control. 
Almost  any  woman  can  be  inventive 
enough  to  suit  any  child's  requirements, 
if  she  has  the  will  and  the  spiritual 
strength.  Almost  any  woman  can  be 
a  successful  mother  if  she  begins  by  recog- 
nising that  her  child  is  an  individual,  and 
regards  him  as  an  item,  rather  than  as  the 
total. 

I  knew  a  little  child,  accounted  the 
stupidest  of  his  race,  because  for  a 
month  of  Sundays  his  mother  and 
teacher  had  travailed  to  make  him 
understand  that  one  apple  and  one  apple 
made  two  apples.  To  him  "one  apple 
and  one  apple  makes  one  apple,"  and 
for  many  months  he  could  not  help  it. 
Maybe  he  cannot  now,  although  that 
was  ten  years  ago.  Upon  one  occasion 
when  his  mother  was  proclaiming  him 


;6         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

hopeless  I  heard  that  little  boy  exonerate 
himself  forever — at  least  in  my  eyes. 

"  Do  you  know,  Johnnie,  if  you  will  not 
learn  that  one  apple  and  one  apple  makes 
two  apples  you  will  grow  up  to  be  just 
like  those  men  who  are  digging  that  drain 
out  there.  You  simply  can't  be  any- 
thing different.  You'll  have  to  dig  drains 
and  make  roads  and  carry  bricks  all  of 
your  life. " 

"  Well, "  said  Johnnie,  to  whom  one 
apple  and  one  apple  made  one  apple, 
"  somebody  has  to  do  it.  "  The  light  of 
patience  and  good  intentions,  and  won- 
derment was  in  Johnnie's  face  as  he 
spoke.  It  seemed  to  me  that  though  one 
apple  and  one  apple  should  forever  and 
ever  make  one  apple  to  Johnnie,  it  was 
just  possible  that  Johnnie  might  evolve  a 
good  working  text  book  on  economics,  or 
something  of  that  kind.  I  felt  a  good 
deal  sorrier  for  Johnnie's  mamma  at  that 
moment  than  I  did  for  Johnnie.  She 
had  no  intimate  acquaintance  with  John- 
nie, and  probably  never  would  have  till 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        77 

he  began  to  teach  her  what  a  very  nice, 
practical,  helpful  son  she  had. 

If  a  woman  cannot  afford  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  a  new-fangled  system  of  living, 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  convert  her 
Saturday  mending  into  an  illuminated 
missal,  while  infancy  plays  at  soldiers 
by  the  fireplace,  and  bivouacs  on  the 
woven-in  dog.  At  least,  she  may  enroll 
herself  in  the  ambulance  corps,  and  pre- 
tend to  be  making  bandages  for  the 
soldier  over  by  the  fireplace,  who 
has  been  wounded  in  the  service  of  his 
country. 

A  child  may  not  be  intellectually 
brilliant,  but  he  can  learn  his  letters,  if 
someone  will  take  time  to  focus  his  mind 
on  building  blocks,  alphabetically  con- 
structed. The  attention  once  attracted, 
mental  assimilation  follows.  While  the 
mind  is  still  inchoate,  building  blocks 
do  more  than  the  primer  for  a  child  who 
is  stupid  or  otherwise.  Then  why  not 
have  a  kindergarten  system  for  the  at- 
tractive presentation  of  morals  ? 


78         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Crumbs'  system  and  mine  was  irreg- 
ular, and  it  kept  one  of  us  alert  for  de- 
vices night  and  day.  Our  conduct  of 
this  general  plan  was  along  no  predestined 
line.  As  in  the  matter  of  the  dog,  it  was 
generally  an  expedient  that  happened  to 
suggest  itself. 

I  could  say  to  the  dog,  when  Crumbs 
was  about  to  take  the  clock  to  pieces: 
"I  shall  be  sorry,  Mulvaney,  if  you  take 
that  clock  apart;  I  shall  have  to  punish 
you  and  I  guess  it  will  about  make  me 
sick."  Inevitably  the  clock  stayed  in  its 
accustomed  resting  place,  inviolated. 

This  idea  worked  its  way  into  Crumbs' 
system  in  a  fashion  which  made  it  seem 
to  him  an  entirely  natural  process,  but 
about  his  fourth  year  he  began  to  watch 
me  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye  as  I  talked, 
and  he  would  depart  without  committing 
the  offense,  yet  with  a  new  manner.  Then 
the  inevitable  day  came  when  he  grinned, 
while  I  continued  to  harangue  Mulvaney 
to  no  purpose.  The  result  was  that  Mul- 
vaney for  once  got  the  conversation, 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         79 

while  Crumbs  got  what  was  coming1  ^o 
him,  after  he  had  placed  a  loaf  of  bread 
stuck  full  of  pins  upon  my  dressing 
table. 

Crumbs  tried  to  argue  the  matter  with 
me,  when  he  could  draw  his  attention 
from  the  seat  of  selection,  but  he  did  so  to 
no  special  purpose,  except  that  we  more 
completely  understood  each  other.  His 
argument  was  all  right,  in  its  prehistoric 
way,  but  mine  was  more  up-to-date. 
He  pointed  out  to  me  that  he  had  not 
grinned  defiantly,  but  because  he  had 
known  that  I  was  admonishing  Mulvaney 
for  something  he  neither  could  do  nor 
had  done,  and  he  thought  it  a  good  joke 
on  Mulvaney.  I  suggested  a  new  inter- 
pretation, and  proved  beyond  question 
that  the  joke  was  on  Crumbs.  He  had 
long  been  awake  to  my  generous  sub- 
terfuge, and  had  not  only  taken  advan- 
tage of  me,  but,  what  was  worse,  had 
taken  advantage  of  Mulvaney,  permit- 
ting him  to  stand  for  Crumbs'  sins  after 
Crumbs  had  developed  a  sense  of  per- 


So        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

sonal  responsibility.  The  time  had  come 
when  his  development  could  progress 
without  further  injury  to  Mulvaney's 
feelings,  and  it  was  about  this  period 
that  Mulvaney  began  to  stand  for 
Crumbs'  moral  appendix  as  it  were — no 
longer  useful,  though  still  a  part  of  the 
structure. 

I  began  continually  to  point  out  to 
Crumbs,  that  love  which  in  a  dog  passeth 
understanding.  The  dog  had  borne  the 
burden  of  his  master's  sins,  while  yet 
his  master  was  too  young  to  be  taught 
by  anything  more  strenuous  than  ex- 
ample. 

Before  Crumbs  or  Mulvaney  knew, 
there  grew  up  between  them  a  new- 
dressed  religious  era,  in  which  chivalry 
and  self-sacrifice  played  their  usual  parts, 
and  Crumbs  went  upon  all-fours,  so  to 
speak,  at  Mulvaney's  call.  It  didn't 
matter  much  to  Mulvaney — Crumbs'  new 
thought — and  not  much  more  to  Crumbs 
just  then;  but  long  afterward,  when 
Crumbs  began  to  learn  the  relations  of 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         81 

things  and  people  to  each  other,  I  found 
that  the  episode  had  its  place. 

We  conducted  a  good  deal  of  life  on 
the  "sposen"  plan,  Crumbs  and  I.  One 
of  the  most  diverting  "sposen"  occasions 
that  I  now  recall  was  an  impromptu  play, 
which  grew  out  of  a  morning's  distrac- 
tion, when  he  and  I  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  maid-of-all-work,  when  the  trades- 
people failed  to  arrive  on  time,  when  I 
had  a  business  appointment  at  the  far 
end  of  town,  and  an  acquaintance 
stopped  in  to  lunch.  In  that  oppressive 
hour,  Crumbs  was  in  the  way  and  he 
resented  the  exigencies  of  the  situation. 
For  the  time  being  he  was  effaced  from 
the  scene,  while  I  struggled  to  bring  order 
out  of  chaos. 

Time  in  which  to  take  breath  came  the 
following  day,  and  I  proposed  then  to 
Crumbs  that  we  should  have  a  "  sposen  " 
time,  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of 
yesterday's  reality.  He  was  to  be  I. 
He  was  to  do  all  the  things  that  I  had 
done — including  the  ordering  of  me  out 


82         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  his  way — I  being  Crumbs.  This  met 
with  Crumbs'  idea  of  a  good  time,  and 
he  proceeded  to  say: 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Blank,"  while 
I  shook  hands  and  filled  in  somewhat 
after  the  following  fashion : 

"That's  right,  'How  do  you  do,'"— 
shaking  hands  with  Crumbs.  Then,  in 
my  proper  person: "Remember!  There 
isn't  a  thing  in  the  house  to  eat,  Crumbs ! 
You  were  going  to  have  luncheon  down- 
town. You  have  to  go  to  the  city,  be- 
cause your  little  son's  living  somewhat 
depends  on  it.  I'm  your  little  son,  you 
know.  Margaret  does  not  know  how  to 
do  anything  but  keep  people  from  carry- 
ing off  the  place,  and  nobody  wants  to 
carry  off  the  place.  Go  over  there  in  the 
corner.  That  chair  is  Margaret.  Ask 
her  if  the  butcher  has  come  with  the 
meat  for  dinner.  If  he  has,  you  will  have 
to  use  the  dinner  meat  for  luncheon,  you 
know.  No,  no!  You  can't  go  off  like 
that.  Here!  You  must  first  say:  'Will 
you  excuse  me  for  a  moment  Mrs. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         83 

Blank?'  Oh  here!  Comeback  here!  Not 
like  that — not  as  if  your  mind  were  on 
the  butcher.  Take  plenty  of  time — be 
reposeful — don't  hurry  till  you  are  out  of 
the  room — the  rug's  the  doorway — that's 
right! 

"Excuse  me  Mrs.  Blank." 

"There!  Now  you  are  on  the  other 
side  of  the  door — skedaddle! — Remem- 
ber, the  butcher  didn't  come!  Mar- 
garet must  go  for  something.  What? 
Oh,  you  will  have  to  think  that  up. 
Bear  in  mind  that  she  cannot  re- 
member a  blessed  thing.  You'll  have 
to  stop  and  write  out  a  list.  Don't 
forget  anything.  Of  course  you  haven't 
a  pencil — you  must  look  for  one — don't 
forget  Mrs.  Blank.  You  mustn't  forget 
her — Don't  let  her  suspect  there  is 
nothing  in  the  house  to  eat — or  that  you 
were  going  out.  Hurry,  hurry!  You 
must  get  to  the  telephone  and  call  up 
oooo  Nemo,  and  fix  that  engagement  of 
yours — or  you  wont  be  able  to  pay  the 
butcher  on  your  little  boy's  account  to- 


84        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

morrow!— bill's  just  come  in!  there,  on 
the  desk!— You  must  remember  that  you 
are  the  mother  as  well  as  the  father  of  a 
family  now. 

There!— The  butcher  is  at  the  ele- 
vator! Run! — that's  it — the  piano  bench 
is  the  elevator! — Think  what  you  want 
to  order — and  remember  that  Mrs.  Blank 
thinks  by  this  time  you  run  your  house 
in  a  very  irregular  fashion — also  your 
little  boy — I'm  your  little  boy,  and  I'm 
turning  Mulvaney's  ears  wrong-side  out 
and  making  him  growl!  Mrs.  Blank 
is  right  in  thinking  you  are  a  very  irreg- 
ular housekeeper  and  mother  and  every- 
thing:— so  you  are — you  can't  help  it! 
I — your  little  boy — was  coughing  with 
his  cold  all  last  night,  and  you — my 
mother — were  about  the  place  giving  me 
all  sorts  of  things  for  it,  and  asking  if  I 
felt  chilly  and  if  I  was  covered  up — don't 
feel  perfectly  fit  yourself,  to-day!  Mrs. 
Blank  cannot  possibly  know  all  about  it 
however;  she  has  troubles  of  her  own — 
probably  has  come  to  tell  you  of  them! 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         85 

They  are  different  from  yours,  that  is  all! 
Come !  Be  nice  to  me !  I  am  Mrs.  Blank. 
Go  to  the  'phone  and  ring  up  oooo  Nemo ; 
— now  say  something  that  will  tell  to  Mrs. 
Blank  that  you  had  an  important  en- 
gagement, and  that  you  mean  to  break  it 
because  you  wish  to  be  here  with  her.  " 

Crumbs,  at  piano  bench  telephoning: 
"Mrs.  Blank  's  here  an'  I  can't  come. 
I'm  awful  sorry. " 

"Oh  my  goodness  no!  That  is  true, 
but  it  would  hurt  Mrs.  Blank's  feelings. 
Something  different.  Oh,  I  can't  tell. 
How  can  your  little  boy  tell?  He  didn't 
tell  me  yesterday.  He  just  raised  Cain 
all  the  time  I  was  trying  to  think !  You'll 
have  to  think  of  the  right  thing.  Some- 
thing different !  —  You  can't!  —  Well 
you'll  have  to!  —  I  couldn't  either,  yes- 
terday, but  I  did. — That  is  a  part  of 
your  business  if  you  are  I,  and  I  am  Mrs. 
Blank  and  am  here  for  lunch. 

"'Say — Mama!'  (Now,  I'm  your  little 
boy).  "I'm  going  to  take  my  engine 
over  in  the  park  an'  I'm  going  now!1 " 


86         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"  Now  you  mustn't  let  me  do  it  because 
I'll  get  run  over  when  I  cross  the  tracks  on 
Eighth  Avenue:  I'm  just  a  little  boy." 
(Crumbs  began  to  giggle.)  "  'Well,  I'm 
going  to! — see  if  I  don't!'" 

"Here  you  are  letting  me  go! — Grab  me 
by  the  shoulder  and  say  'Walk  into  that 
room  this  instant — and  don't  you  put 
your  feet  in  Mrs.  Blank's  lap  nor  make 
ridiculous  sounds  nor  faces — and  don't  you 
say  another  word  about  the  park  or  that 
engine — or  I'll  spank  you!'  Hurry  and 
say  that  to  me  now! — and  then  I'll  go 
and  pull  Mulvaney's  stump-tail  in  front 
of  Mrs.  Blank,  and  look  smart — to  see  if 
she  notices  what  a  wonder  I  am!  And 
Mrs.  Blank  will  think  I  have  a  nice  kind 
of  a  mother. — Margaret's  taking  the 
romaine  out  of  the  water  and  putting  it  in 
the  bowl  without  drying  it! — rush! — 
stop  her!— Talk  a  little  to  Mrs.  Blank  as 
you  go  into  the  hall  so  she  will  think  your 
mind  is  at  rest. — Now,  here! — I'm  Mrs. 
Blank!— Hurry!  the  salad!— Don't  turn 
round  and  round  like  that — the  salad's 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         87 

over  there! — Don't  forget  the  telephone — 
say  something  through  it  that  will  make 
Mrs.  Blank  go  before  lunch :  you  are  half 
crazy  \ — Say  something  that  will  make 
her  go,  yet  will  not  make  her  think  you 
regret  she  came. — You  really  do  not  re- 
gret it — but  it  is  necessary  for  you  to 
keep  your  appointment — you  are  a  work- 
ing woman  and  have  to  work  spry  or 
something  will  happen  to  your  little  boy. 
I'm  your  little  boy. — You  love  me  better 
than  any  thing  in  the  world. — Now  your 
little  boy  is  making  a  ticket-chopper 
of  the  inside  blinds — and  using  a  letter 
off  the  desk  for  his  tickets, — and  there 
might  as  well  be  a  cheque  inside  that 
letter  as  not,  if  your  mother  was  any- 
body on  earth  but  your  mother — You 
must  come  here  and  stop  me. — You 
must  think  of  the  right  thing  to  say  over 
the  'phone. — Think  about  that  all  the 
time  you  are  doing  everything  else — 
you'll  get  an  idea  after  a  while — your 
mother  does  sometimes!  Now  I  am  Mrs. 
Blank: 


88         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"  'Oh,  you  have  an  engagement  ?  Now 
don't  think  of  breaking  it.  I  only 
ran  in  for  a  minute  anyway.  Lunch? 
Oh,  I  couldn't — going  to  the  children's 
club — they  discuss  how  to  bring  up 
mothers,  I  believe.  Crumbs  doesn't  be- 
long ? — No !  Really !  Now  I  should  think — 

" She's  gone!  Run  tell  Margaret  to  go 
down  and  stop  the  oysterman — oysters 
wont  be  fit  for  dinner  if  they  send  them 
up  now.  No — she'll  mix  things!  You'll 
have  to  ring  up  oooo  Nemo  again  and  say 
you  are  coming  and  then  stop  on  your 
way  to  the  car  and  tell  the  oyster  people 
yourself.  Hurry — hurry — hurry!  Can't 
you  remember  the  telephone  is  the  piano 
bench?  the  elevator  is  the — oh  good- 
ness ! — oh " 

By  this  time  Crumbs  was  prostrate  and 
shouting  with  joy  and  excitement. 

This  was  his  favourite  "sposen"  game, 
till  he  became  fairly  expert  in  doing 
everything  in  sight  with  lightning  rapid- 
ity; and  all  possible  variants  were  rung 
into  the  performance.  We  worked  the 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         89 

drama  up  to  a  climax  each  time  till 
finally,  one  day,  Crumbs  sat  down 
winded,  and  remarked  that  it  was  lots  of 
fun, — '  but  you  get  awful  tired. '  Then 
it  was  my  time  to  mention  that  his 
mother  often  thought  so  too, — and  that 
his  wife  would  think  so  frequently;  and 
I  have  had  Crumbs  living  up  to  his  wife 
ever  since. 

Crumbs  learned  several  things  by  this 
game  of  "  'sposen."  He  learned  to  keep 
his  wits  about  him,  learned  to  get  the 
mechanism  of  his  mind  going,  and  in  time 
he  interpolated  a  good  deal  of  action  on 
his  own  account. 

What  I  couldn't  think  of  in  the  line  of 
distractions,  he  could.  He  learned  to  be 
fairly  discreet,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
appreciate  the  necessity  for  sincerity 
with  Mrs.  Blank  and  those  whom  she 
represented.  "  'Sposen  "  times,  like  Mul- 
vaney,  became  one  of  our  valued  exped- 
ients. 

It  is  so  much  better  for  a  child  to 
"  'sposen "  the  decencies  of  life  than  to 


9o         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

occupy  himself  with  unpleasing  actual- 
ities. 

I  intend  that  Crumbs  shall  learn  to 
cook  a  dinner  of  six  courses;  just  an 
everyday,  decently  prepared  dinner,  such 
as  he  will  expect  his  wife  to  serve  to  him 
one  day;  or  such  as  she  should  wish  to 
serve  to  him,  if  he  cannot  provide  the 
service  and  the  viands  too.  It  will  be 
the  worse  for  her  if  she  must  try  to  make 
him  believe  that  he  has  dined,  after  she 
has  made  soup  out  of  chicken's  feet,  and 
a  piece  de  resistance  out  of  the  ghost  of 
Sunday's  roast.  He  shall  learn,  if  I  keep 
him  at  it  till  he  is  twenty-one.  By  that 
time  he  will  have  added  several  things 
to  his  curriculum — how  to  cook  a  dinner 
(and  the  chemistry  of  dining  is  no  bad 
thing  for  a  man  to  know) — and  how  much 
to  be  revered  the  cook  is.  Incidentally, 
he  will  not  be  too  critical  some  day.  when 
the  roast  is  overdone. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   QUESTION    OF    OBEDIENCE 

'TWERE  are  a  lot  of  things  that  make 
•*•  for  good  morals  which  a  child  may 
learn  as  its  mother  goes  along,  but 
the  mother  cannot  waste  any  time.  The 
economy  of  time  is  one  of  the  most 
important  things  on  earth  when  one  has 
only  seven  years  in  which  to  get  a  man 
or  woman  started,  and  started  right.  A 
woman,  herself,  will  acquire  a  deal  of 
higher  education  in  the  process,  and  by 
the  time  she  is  fifty,  she  can  take  it  to 
mothers'  clubs,  where  she  can  compare 
notes  with  other  mothers  of  the  same 
age.  That  is  about  all  a  mothers'  club 
can  amount  to — a  place  for  the  com- 
parison of  notes  after  a  woman's  children 
have  cast  their  first  votes  or  had  their 
first  babies.  Up  to  that  time  she  hasn't 


92         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

any  leisure  in  which  to  tell  anybody  but 
her  children  what  to  do.  It  keeps  an 
intelligent  .mother  on  the  tightrope  a 
large  part  of  her  life — this  effort  to  help 
her  children  to  happiness — but  some 
women  think  it  pays. 

Crumbs  was  elemental,  therefore  as 
full  of  the  spirit  of  experiment  as  any 
other  boy,  and  it  would  have  been  as 
effectual  to  tell  him  to  turn  black  as  to 
tell  him  to  be  good.  Arbitrary  state- 
ments do  not  specially  appeal  to  child- 
ren; not  even  the  arbitrary  statement 
that  they  must  obey.  Children  must 
obey,  but  they  are  going  to  know  why 
they  must,  else  they  will  obey  without 
good  to  their  souls  and  with  considerable 
detriment  to  their  intelligence.  Obe- 
dience is  only  half  the  proposition,  and 
the  weakest  half  at  that.  The  desire  to 
obey  means  that  the  child  has  arrived. 

Crumbs  never  did  obey  in  the  fashion 
of  the  martinet,  but  the  spirit  of  obe- 
dience was  his  after  he  found  out  the  part 
obedience  played  in  the  economy  of  love 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES      93 

and  opportunity.  His  illumination  came 
about  in  the  usual  irregular  fashion. 

Since  Crumbs  and  I  were  mostly  com- 
pany for  each  other,  and  enjoyed  each 
other's  society  immensely,  it  was  my 
habit  always  to  put  my  desires  in  the 
form  of  requests,  and  invariably  to  thank 
him  for  his  services.  As  a  creature  of 
habit,  I  never  have  laid  aside  this  un- 
seemly method  of  request  and  thanks — • 
not  even  after  being  criticised  by  those 
who  had  "never  heard  of  such  a  thing 
in  my  time.  In  my  time,  when  children 
were  told  to  do  a  thing  they  did  it,  and 
that  was  the  end  of  it.  "  It  was  generally 
only  the  beginning  of  it  with  Crumbs 
and  me,  yet  we  got  on  very  well,  till 
we  had  a  visitor  who  frequently  re- 
verted to  the  ancient,  unmannerly  order 
of  things. 

She  was  a  kind,  gentle-minded  person, 
withal,  if  somewhat  austere  in  her  meth- 
ods, and  the  first  I  knew  of  Crumbs' 
delinquencies  was  when  a  froward  voice 
said: 


94         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"Don't  you  fank  boys  when  they  do 
fings  for  you?" 

After  this  Crumbs  and  I  talked  to- 
gether. I  pointed  out  to  him  that  there 
were  other  ways  than  ours;  ways  as 
worthy,  if  different.  I  tried  to  explain 
the  part  which  intention  plays  in  all 
things;  but  this  illustration  happened 
later,  when  Crumbs  learned  something  of 
the  proper  classification  of  people.  It 
was  not  a  thing  which  I  was  able,  ar- 
bitrarily, to  teach  him.  I  had  to  wait 
till  the  time  came  when  his  intellect 
could  be  helped  out  by  actual  personal 
demonstration.  That  was  how  Crumbs 
learned  everything. 

But  I  began  to  perceive  that,  on  the 
whole,  Crumbs  would  have  to  learn  to 
obey  without  questioning.  After  the 
process  of  obedience  began,  he  continued 
for  many  days  to  ask  "Why?"  and  I 
could  hardly  blame  him.  I,  too,  always 
liked  to  know  why.  Then,  one  day  the 
gas-log  apparatus  was  changed  in 
Crumbs'  absence  and  the  new  arrange- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         95 

ment  had  some  drawback.  It  was  nec- 
essary to  use  the  gas-lighter  in  starting 
it  because  the  combustion  was  imper- 
fect, but  the  log  could  be  used  before  it 
was  entirely  adjusted,  if  proper  care  were 
taken. 

When  Crumbs  returned  home  he  was 
cold,  and  according  to  custom  he  began 
to  light  the  log  as  he  had  lighted  the 
former  one.  I  spoke  sharply  to  him 
from  the  next  room,  as  he  was  in  the  act 
of  striking  a  match,  and  by  the  time 
he  had  asked  "why"  he  found  him- 
self a  good  way  off,  with  portions  of 
the  stove. 

It  was  a  costly  and  hazardous  way  to 
teach  a  child  the  value  of  obedience,  but 
since  it  did  not  kill  him  and  his  eye- 
brows grew  again,  it  paid.  If  I,  myself, 
had  realised  the  value  of  arbitrary  com- 
mand and  obedience,  Crumbs  would 
have  learned  his  lesson,  not  less  im- 
pressively but  long  before,  with  less 
danger  and  along  the  line  of  the  least 
resistance. 


96        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

The  accident  was  my  opportunity,  and 
I  did  not  ignore  it.  I  made  it  plain  forever 
that  I  was  in  no  way  trying  to  impose 
upon  his  intelligence  or  good  nature; 
that  there  might  frequently  be  times 
when  I  could  not  explain,  yet  when 
obedience  would  be  valuable  to  him; 
that  he  had  just  had  this  demonstrated ; 
that  no  one  could  contract  the  habit  of 
instant  obedience  without  practice; 
therefore  it  would  be  necessary  for  him 
to  begin  at  once  to  obey  without  excep- 
tion; to  obey  on  the  instant,  and — that 
was  "WHY?"  I  had  supplied,  or  acci- 
dent had,  the  reason  why  he  should  obey, 
and  Crumbs,  being  a  reasonable  sort, 
liked  the  idea  very  well  indeed,  and  we 
did  not  delay  beginning  the  new  game. 

He  still  asked  "why?"  and  I  pointed 
to  the  gas-log  if  we  were  within  sight  of 
it;  or  maybe  I  remarked  that  it  took 
his  eyebrows  a  long  time  to  grow.  At 
such  times  Crumbs  just  giggled;  later, 
he  grinned  and  obeyed;  and,  finally,  he 
obeyed  with  mechanical  precision;  but 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         97 

I  never  could  forgive  myself  for  my  own 
shortcoming.  The  way  of  obedience 
should  have  been  discussed  about 
his  sixth  month  when  he  had  a  colic 
from  over-eating,  against  my  best  judg- 
ment. 

If  a  woman  lives  but  to  avert  the 
consequences  of  misconduct  from  her 
children  (and  if  she  has  any  children  she 
has  no  time  to  live  for  anything  else)  she 
must  provide  horrible  examples  for  them 
right  along; — examples  made  dramatic, 
interesting  and  impressive ;  and  she  must 
have  tact  enough  not  to  reveal  that  she 
has  turned  preceptress. 

I  am  assuming  that  the  mother  knows 
that  love  which  passeth  understanding. 
There  will  never  be  a  text-book  on 
"Motherhood  Made  Easy"  that  will 
be  a  good  working  model.  Mother- 
hood, wide  awake  and  doing  some- 
thing all  the  time  is  the  only 
motherhood  that  will  turn  out  anything 
worth  having  had.  With  cause  and 
effect  continually  before  a  child  from  the 


98         CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

time  he  can  sit  up  and  take  notice,  a  woman 
is  certain  to  establish  in  such  a  child,  a 
continual  capacity  for  independent  and  in- 
telligent thought.  Lacking  this  power  of 
comparison  and  reflection,  another  child, 
who  has  had  the  conditions  of  life  passed 
before  the  sensitive  plate  of  his  mind 
without  explanation  of  the  relations  of 
things,  will  fall  off  the  roof — with  no  pro- 
founder  purpose  than  to  see  how  it  seems. 

Crumbs  eventually  became  inordin- 
ately proud  of  his  instantaneous  obe- 
dience ;  I  learned  this  from  a  conversation 
I  overheard. 

"  I  obey  right  off  immediuntly,  now, " 
he  offered,  with  a  deal  of  pride  in  his 
achievement.  "First  off  I  didn't,  but 
nowl  Why  I  just  don't  know  I'm  doin' 
it;  I  can  do  it  bully." 

His  vis  a  vis  could  not  understand 
Crumbs'  point  of  view.  The  key  to  that 
was  known  only  to  my  son  and  myself. 
Crumbs  had  been  treated  always  as  an 
individual,  not  as  an  oyster.  The  ac- 
quaintance said: 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES         99 

"Of  course  you  obey.  I'm  sure  you 
do,  nice  boy  like  you. " 

"I'm  not  a  nice  boy;  the  janitor  says 
so.  And  I  don't  obey  to  be  nice, " 
Crumbs  frowned.  He  was  always  im- 
patient of  stupidity ;  he  learned  patience 
later. 

"What?  You  don't  want  to  be  a  nice 
boy  ? " 

"Yes — but  I  can't.  I'm  just  telling 
you  that  I  obey — right  off.  " 

"Didn't  you  always  obey?" 

"Why?" 

"Because  you  owe  it  to  your  mother 
to  obey." 

"  I  don't  owe  my  muver  anyfing.  We 
just  owe  th'  grocery  man. "  This  was 
not  strictly  true  because  we  also  owed 
the  butcher. 

"What,  you  do  not  owe  your  dear 
mother  obedience?  Don't  say  such 
a  thing.  It  pains  me  to  hear  little 
boys  speak  in  that  manner. " 

"If  you're  sick  it's  too  bad,  but  don't 
you  say  I  owe  my  muver  anyfing." 


ioo      CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Crumbs  scowled.  ' '  You  bet  my  muver  and 
I  wove  each  other  awful.  We  don't  owe 
each  other  anyfing.  We  just  wove  each 
other.  We  owe  the  grocery  man." 
Crumbs  had  made  so  fine  and  beautiful 
a  distinction  that  I  could  not  hope  to 
help  him  do  better. 

He  had  got  down  to  the  basic  principles 
of  human  and  emotional  classification, 
unaided  by  anything  but  his  own  clear 
sight.  He  had  heard  the  word  "owe" 
in  relation  to  the  groceryman  doubtless; 
but  it  was  certain  that  he  had  never 
heard  of  it  in  its  extraordinary  applica- 
tion to  the  "give  and  take"  of  affec- 
tion 

"I  do  obey,"  Crumbs  persisted,  en- 
deavouring to  enlighten  the  woman  who 
conceived  some  queer,  alien  obligation 
on  the  part  of  children  to  their  parents. 
"I  obey  because  my  muver  says  its 
good  sense — an'  it  is,  because  I  didn't, 
and  th*  gas  blew  me  sky-high.  "  Crumbs' 
language  from  infancy  had  always  been 
more  picturesque  than  elegant. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       101 

"You  should  not  need  any  reasons 
for  obeying  your  mother.  I  do  not  like 
to  hear  little  boys  speak  as  you  do. " 

"Yes,  I  do  need  reasons — for  every  - 
everyfing. " 

"  Don't  you  think  your  mother  knows 
what  is  best  for  you.  " 

"  Well, "  said  Crumbs,  trying  to  think 
impartially,  "she  might  be  mistaken. 
She  has  been  sometimes,  because  she  told 
me  so. "  Crumbs  spoke  truthfully  as  usual. 

Upon  all  propositions  of  do  and  dare, 
we  consulted  when  it  was  practicable: 
it  helped  Crumbs  and  it  helped  me.  He 
never  obeyed  less  willingly,  promptly 
and  proudly  because  he  didn't  "owe" 
me  anything.  Later,  Crumbs  told  me  of 
this  conversation. 

"  She  said  I  owed  you  somefing ;  do  I  ? " 

"Well,  not  that  I  know  of,  Crumbs. 
I  believe  I  am  in  your  debt  about  three 
cents,  since  you  heped  me  to  make  change 
for  the  shell-fish  man,  last  week.  I  shall 
pay  it  this  minute.  I  should  have  done 
so  before," 


102       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"  Oh  you  needn't  bover  about  that.  I 
wasn't  talkin'  about  owin'  because,  be- 
cause— "  Crumbs'  gentlemanly  instincts 
were  apparent,  but  he  did  not  as  yet 
know  precisely  the  way  to  express  them. 

"Why  did  she  say  I  owed  somefmg? 
I  finked  about  the  free  cents,  but  I 
wouldn't  tell  her. "  He  spoke  with 
scorn.  He  had  begun  to  mention  his 
mature  friends  as  "Her"  and  "She," 
a  form  which  always  marked  his  dis- 
approbation. 

"  I  will  tell  you,  " — I  always  explained 
such  heresies  as  I  could,  lest  Crumbs 
learn  less  acceptably  from  some  other 
source.  "There  are  people  who  believe 
that  little  children  owe  something  or 
other.  I,  myself,  do  not  know  precisely 
what,  but  they  are  supposed  to  owe 
something  to  their  fathers  and  mothers, 
because  of  the  care  parents  are  expected 
to  give  their  children. "  Crumbs  was 
deeply  interested:  it  was  a  new  point  of 
view,  this  classification  of  parents  with 
tradespeople. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 


103 


"  Owe  'em  money  ?"  he  asked,  uneasily : 
"  I  shan't  have  any  money  for  a  long  time, 
shall  I?" 

"Not  if  I  keep  borrowing  of  you, 
Crumbs,  which  is  really  a  great  shame —  " 

"  No  it  isn't.  I  wikes  you  to  borrow — 
but  it  isn't  borrowing — it's  just  the 
same  as  yours — my  rings — just  as  your 
rings  are  mine. " 

"  Maybe  that  is  the  better  way  to  look 
at  it.  But  I'll  try  to  deal  fairly." 

"Do  children  owe  'em  money?" 

"No,  some  people  think  their  children 
owe  them  love  and  kindness  and  honour 
and — oh  a  lot  of  things. "  Crumbs  was 
visibly  swelling. 

' '  Bu-u-u-b-u-t ' '  Crumbs  always 

stammered  like  his  mother  when  he  be- 
came agitated. 

"  I  do  wove  you  'n'  be  kind  to  you 

aren't  I?"  And  I  don't  know  what's 

honour "  Crumbs  was  becoming 

tearful  and  angry  and  altogether  dis- 
turbed. 

"  You  do  love  me  and  are  kind  to  me, 


io4       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

just  as  surely  as  you  live! "  I  told  him. 
The  more  I  discussed  the  matter,  the 
more  dangerously  near  to  Crumbs'  own 
condition  I  became. 

"But — that's  not  owin'  things.  / 
can't  help  it ! 

I  tried  to  explain  that  he  need  not  try 
to  help  it,  that  he  could  never  owe  me 
anything  in  all  his  life;  that  as  between 
mother  and  son,  we  took  no  account  of 
benefits;  that  if  there  were  obligations 
between  us,  they  were  on  my  side;  that 
if  it  were  not  my  dearest  privilege  to  live 
for  him  all  the  time,  we  might  then  open 
a  debit  and  credit  side  in  Humanity's 
account;  that  I  alone  was  responsible 
that  he  lived  and  had  a  mind  to  make  or 
to  destroy;  that  he  should  experience 
happiness  or  despair  as  the  case  should 
prove  me  to  have  been  capable  or  other- 
wise; that  the  great  problem  of  human 
obligation  began  and  ended  with  his  love 
forme  and  mine  for  him;  and  at  last,  if 
he  were  not  good  enough  to  be  happy  all 
his  life,  it  would  kill  me. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       105 

I  do  not  know  how  much  of  this 
Crumbs  understood,  but  I  know  that  the 
last  words  of  the  peroration  were  mighty 
to  him,  and  I  fancy  neither  of  us  quite 
forgot  our  discussion  of  another  woman's 
well-meaning  but  badly  aborted  philos- 
ophy. 

Thus,  even  the  assininities  of  our 
friends  often  served  us.  We  learned  to 
turn  almost  everything  to  account  soon 
or  late. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A    CURE    FOR   THE   TANTRUMS 

'"PHE  slight  impression  which  forces 
•*•  and  facts  make  upon  a  child,  un- 
less he  had  found  in  them  a  personal 
application,  was  brought  to  my  mind,  and 
cost  me  one  dollar  and  sixty-five  cents 
one  morning  when  Crumbs  was  five  years 
old.  In  infancy  the  dangers  of  burning 
had  been  fended  from  Crumbs  until  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  sufficed  to 
protect  him.  Afterward,  the  full  potency 
of  fire  never  had  been  borne  in  upon 
him.  I  do  not  know  how  it  happened 
to  be  that  the  knowledge  came  to  him 
so  tardily,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  fire 
was  one  of  the  things  of  which  Crumbs 
at  five  years  of  age,  still  had  an  imper- 
sonal knowledge.  The  gas-log  episode 
had  served  merely  as  a  sign-board  to  the 
way  of  Obedience. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       107 

On  the  occasion  when  fire  became  a 
fact  to  him  he  had  wetted  a  new  pair  of 
shoes.  It  was  early  morning,  and  before 
I  was  out  of  bed,  he  had  come  to  me  to 
ask  what  he  should  do  to  dry  them.  I 
told  him  what  to  do,  being  at  the  time 
about  half  awake;  then  I  dismissed  the 
incident  till  he  returned  to  say  that  they 
had  told  him  below  if  he  put  his  shoes  on 
the  stove  he  would  burn  them  up.  He 
had  left  them  there,  however,  because  I 
had  told  him  to,  and  he  guessed  I  knew 
"better'n  they  did." 

This  was  a  mistake.  I  had  directed 
him  differently,  but  he  had  misunder- 
stood me,  and  his  shoes  were  cooking  on 
a  hot  stove  griddle.  Before  they  were 
rescued,  the  soles  were  burned  com- 
pletely off. 

Certain  members  of  the  family  sug- 
gested that  he  be  thrashed.  Crumbs 
had  been  whipped  by  me  a  few  times  in 
his  life,  but  not  so  often  that  it  had 
ceased  to  be  an  episode  of  importance. 
About  this  time  I  had  begun  to  think  I 


io8       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

should  never  thrash  Crumbs  again — 
greatly  to  the  disappointment  and  dis- 
approval of  those  about  me,  who  believed 
in  obligation  on  the  part  of  children 
toward  their  parents — the  notion  so 
distrusted  and  despised  by  Crumbs  and 
me. 

When  Crumbs  burned  his  shoes,  I  be- 
lieved that  I  could  turn  the  incident  to 
better  account  than  a  whipping,  even  if 
Crumbs  had  been  at  fault,  which  he  was 
not.  At  our  tete  a  tele  breakfast,  on  the 
morning  of  the  tragedy  of  the  shoes, 
Crumbs  first  got  fixed  within  him  the  rela- 
tion of  heat  to  things — his  things — inci- 
dentally, everything.  I  found  that  he 
had  never  before  realised  what  heat 
meant  in  the  economy  of  cookery. 

This  seems  incredible  stupidity  on  the 
part  of  a  five-year-old  child,  perhaps,  but 
then  Crumbs  had  a  great  many  things  to 
think  about.  It  was  all  he  could  do  to 
absorb  facts  as  they  came  along,  and 
absorb  them  rightly.  When  he  saw  a 
parade  in  the  street  he  had  to  know  the 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       109 

reason  for  it,  also  the  reason  for  the 
reason.  When  he  was  in  the  sea,  having 
the  time  of  his  life,  and  his  teeth  began  to 
chatter  while  he  still  "  felt  warm, "  he 
had  to  know  the  reason  for  coming  back 
to  dry  land.  This  compelled  him  to 
learn  a  few  basic  facts  about  his  circu- 
lation. Yes,  Crumbs'  busy  day  was  all 
the  time,  and  it  so  happened  that  he  had 
not  till  now  got  so  far  as  the  subject  of 
fire. 

Now  he  learned  that  that  which  would 
cook  meat  would  also  put  his  shoes  out 
of  commission;  and  en  passant,  he  ab- 
sorbed some  facts  about  leather;  which 
would  help  him  to  judge  in  future  years 
if  his  man  were  capable;  or  it  would 
enable  him  to  make  one  pair  of  shoes  do 
the  work  of  two,  by  reason  of  his  own  care. 

Crumbs  knew  a  good  deal  about  fire 
and  leather  by  the  time  we  had  break- 
fasted. I  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  he  was  more  or  less  comforted,  and 
that  the  blow  of  having  caused  me  extra 
expense  and  trouble  was  softened  to 


no       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

him.  Nevertheless,  my  own  nervous 
system  and  his  being  so  inextricably  in- 
volved, we  reacted  upon  each  other,  even 
under  the  most  favourable  circumstances. 
This  particular  morning  I  had  been  none 
too  "  fit "  at  the  outset,  and  the  incident 
of  the  shoes  had  not  improved  Crumbs' 
temper  nor  emotions. 

He  knew  perfectly  well  what  it  cost  to 
buy  a  pair  of  shoes — not  in  dollars,  but 
in  effort  on  somebody's  part.  His  grief 
had  been  diverted  across  the  breakfast 
table;  but  still  he  was  on  edge.  About 
this  time  Mulvaney  committed  some 
doggy  crime  for  which  he  had  to  be  pun- 
ished. I  was  not  fit  to  punish  a  dog 
that  morning.  My  own  inclination  was 
towards  excess,  and  I  should  have  pun- 
ished even  Crumbs,  wickedly.  Hence 
I  handed  the  dog  over  to  the  man- 
about-the-place,  who  had  no  nerves, 
presumably,  and  he  did  have  a  great  deal 
of  discretion  about  dogs.  Then  followed 
one  of  those  dire,  explosive  moments 
which  revealed  all  the  original  sin  in  an 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       in 

ordinarily — perhaps  an  extraordinarily — 
good  boy.  Crumbs  reviled  me. 

He  called  me  a  cruel  woman,  a  wicked 
woman,  the  kind  "who  would  shoot 
more  birds  'n'  she  wanted,  just  be- 
cause. " 

This  was  the  extreme  of  vituperation 
with  him.  It  referred  to  one  of  those 
unsportsmanlike  crimes  reviled  by  his 
father,  and  the  detestation  of  which  was 
absorbed  by  Crumbs  in  his  earliest  mo- 
ments of  understanding.  He  had  taken 
it  in  as  he  had  sat  beside  his  father 
while  gun-cleaning  was  in  progress ;  when 
he  watched  his  father  from  the  wagon 
in  the  fields ;  when  he,  while  no  more 
than  three  years  old,  remained  en  cache 
in  the  blind  beside  his  father;  when 
he  pulled  the  trigger  while  his  father 
sighted  for  him.  In  short,  the  ethics 
of  field  and  stream,  the  peculiar  human- 
ities of  the  gunner,  the  love  of  nature 
that  is  like  the  love  of  nature  known 
to  no  other — the  love  that  sees  the 
grass  grow  and  finds  elation  in  the  drum- 


H2       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

ming  of  a  pheasant's  wings,  emotion 
in  the  rippling  of  a  stream — all  these 
things  were  Crumbs'  heritage;  and  on 
that  eventful  morning  when  I  handed 
Mulvaney  over  to  be  whipped,  I  was  the 
"  cruelest  woman  " — I'd  shoot  more  birds 
than  I  wanted,  just  because! 

The  assembled  family  regarded  me 
with  amazement  and  disapproval  be- 
cause I  spoke  no  word,  but  appeared  to 
find  interest  in  the  morning  paper.  Un- 
less I  had  chosen  to  kill  Crumbs,  I  could 
not  have  stopped  him.  At  that  moment 
death  had  no  terrors  for  him,  neither 
had  anyone's  disapproval.  If  I  had 
spoken,  I  should  have  given  an  import- 
ance to  the  situation  which  it  deserved, 
and  which  couldn't  at  that  moment  have 
been  safely  given. 

Also,  I  should  have  become  unfitted 
for  any  further  responsibility  the  rest  of 
the  day.  The  frightful  cursings  and 
revilements  of  Crumbs  were  giving  me 
nausea  and  vertigo;  and  I  knew  that 
salvation  lay  in  the  morning  paper. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       113 

Crumbs  had  before  now,  with  regret 
but  with  reasonableness,  witnessed  the 
unavoidable  punishment  of  Mulvaney. 
He  loved  me.  He  knew  that  I  was  not 
cruel.  He  would  have  died  for  me,  but 
nothing  except  the  grave  would  have 
stopped  him  at  that  moment.  He  had 
run  amuck.  He  had  temporarily  lost 
his  mind.  Altogether,  our  condition  of 
hysteria  was  mutual,  and  I  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  Crumbs  by  several  years. 
Surely  the  most  exacting  of  judges 
might  have  considered  Crumbs'  handicap 
of  extreme  youth. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  if  age,  exper- 
ience and  practice  had  not  given  to 
me  control  over  my  own  hysterical 
tendencies,  I  could  not  properly  call 
Crumbs  to  account  for  a  like  affliction. 
He  needed  assistance  rather  than  abuse; 
and  the  only  helpful  course  to  pursue  just 
then  was  to  ignore  advice  and  keep 
silent.  Presently,  Crumbs  withdrew  and 
stormed  himself  into  a  state  of  exhaus- 
tion, quite  alone. 


n4       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Then,  just  before  dinner,  Crumbs  and 
I  both  being  in  disgrace  with  the  imme- 
diate family,  we  went  to  walk  apart; 
at  least  I  did.  Crumbs,  who  had  iso- 
lated himself  all  day,  presently  joined  me. 
His  face  was  no  longer  purple ;  it  had  the 
pallor  of  long  illness,  and  dark  circles 
were  underneath  his  eyes.  At  first  we 
walked  without  speaking,  but  Crumbs' 
hand  sought  mine.  We  wanted  to  re- 
assure each  other  but  did  not  know 
how. 

After  a  while  Crumbs  said : 

"  I  can't  talk  about  it — but  I  wove 
you.  "  He  was  by  now  very  well  grown 
— at  least  seven  years  tall — but  he  re- 
tained much  of  his  infant  alphabet. 

There  was  no  need  of  explanation  be- 
tween us.  Crumbs  knew  that  I  did  not 
doubt  his  affection,  and  that,  so  far  as  it 
personally  concerned  me,  the  incident  of 
the  morning  was  closed;  but  it  became 
my  opportunity.  In  that  hour  Crumbs 
acquired  a  new  view  of  his  own  possi- 
bilities. We  talked  comprehensively  of 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       115 

what  such  moments  might  mean  in  the 
course  of  a  lifetime. 

Crumbs  aspired  to  many  things — to  be 
a  motorman,  most  of  all  a  soldier,  because 
of  the  marching  and  the  Rough  Rider 
hat,  a  mounted  policeman  because  of  the 
horse,  and  finally  a  "boss"  who  walked 
round  while  men  built  "flats," — an  occu- 
pation which  with  he  was  familiar, 
having  interviewed  several  "bosses" 
while  "  flats  "  were  in  process  of  construc- 
tion near  his  home. 

On  this  dread  day  when  things  went 
so  radically  wrong  from  morning  till 
night,  it  was  made  plain  to  Crumbs  that 
no  man  who  knew  such  moments  as  he 
had  just  experienced  could,  by  any  possi- 
ble means,  become  a  "boss"  of  anything 
—  not  even  of  a  dog.  That  which  till 
now  had  been  largely  a  theory,  confronted 
him  as  a  condition  necessary  to  his  per- 
sonal interest,  and  self-control  became  a 
matter  of  correspondingly  large  import- 
ance. Love  alone  could  not  mend  his 
temperamental  weaknesses.  He  needed 


n6      CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

to  call  in,  or  to  have  called  in,  all  the 
forces  possible — love,  self-interest,  van- 
ity and  fear.  All  these  were  required 
for  his  rescue.  He  began  to  perceive 
that  in  such  a  moment  of  abandon  he 
might  kill  a  man,  destroy  property, 
beat  his  horse  to  death,  or  run  a  car-load 
of  people  off  the  track.  He  perceived 
that  he  should  become  hated  for  a 
bad  man,  despised  for  a  weak  one, 
jeered  at  for  a  foolish  one  and  finally 
come  to  naught,  even  if  he  did  not  get  so 
far  as  the  penitentiary. 

To  be  sure,  there  was  the  very  reason- 
able and  true  statement  that  maybe  he 
could  not  help  his  tantrums.  The  scene 
of  the  morning  certainly  had  not  been 
premeditated.  He  explained  to  me  that 
it  was  "  something  inside,  "  and  to  this  I 
agreed.  Then  we  decided  that,  if  wicked 
impulses  already  had  the  upper  hand, 
he  was  a  sick  boy  and  must  go  to  some 
place  reserved  for  those  who  could  not 
control  themselves;  but  we  also  agreed 
that  it  was  only  fair  he  should  have  a 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       117 

chance  to  find  out  just  how  far  the  matter 
of  self-control  was  in  his  own  hands, 
before  he  was  sent  into  retirement.  In 
trying  mutually  to  think  out  a  way  to 
help  him,  it  was  determined  that  at  such 
times  of  uncontrol,  he  was  instantly  to 
think  of  motormen,  "  bosses,  "  mounted 
policemen  and  soldiers;  of  how  they 
marched  and  how  he  would  like  to  have 
a  Rough  Rider  hat.  In  short,  he  was 
instantly  to  put  his  mind  upon  the 
pageantry  of  life  and  to  keep  it  there  till 
I  or  something  could  come  to  his  rescue. 
We  went  in  and  composed  a  march 
tune  that  was  to  belong  to  Crumbs  alone. 
He  was  to  think  of  this  and  march  to 
decency  and  good  intentions  by  it  when- 
ever he  felt  the  horror  of  blind  wicked- 
ness coming  upon  him.  The  tune  was  a 
kind  of  combination  of  La  Marseillaise, 
America  and  Coronation.  We  learned 
it  together;  at  least  Crumbs,  who  had  a 
martial  sense  of  time,  and  who  according 
to  requirements  sang  "up,"  when  it 
went  up  and  "  down  "  when  it  went  down, 


u8       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

learned  something  which  was  not  a  tune, 
but  which  could  not  be  mistaken  for 
any  thing  but  our  "  Good  Times"  march. — 
That  was  what  we  decided  to  call 
it — our  Good  Times  march! 

Crumbs  and  I  must  learn  to  march  to 
that  impromptu  measure  or  there  would 
be  no  good  times  for  us.  The  day  came 
when  storms  were  averted  by  the  mere 
stamping  of  my  feet  according  to  the 
"good  times"  measure.  It  was  better 
to  stamp  than  to  sing;  because  it  had 
the  effect  of  instantly  surprising  the 
mind,  and  of  causing  an  emotional 
pause. 

At  six  years  of  age,  Crumbs  would 
grow  purple  with  vicious,  hysterical  im- 
pulse, then  pause,  recognise  the  measure, 
turn  white  with  sudden  emotional  re- 
vulsion and  grin  in  a  sickly  way.  The 
difficulties  of  his  problem  were  apparent 
in  the  physical  exhibition  that  accom- 
panied his  effort  to  control  himself;  but 
Crumbs  was  learning  that  tendencies 
toward  original  sin  can  be  wiped  out 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       119 

with  practice  and  with  strong  enough 
incentive. 

I  learned  something  to  my  own  advan- 
tage the  evening  after  the  episode  of 
the  shoes.  In  the  night — because  sleep 
did  not  visit  either  of  us  promptly — 
Crumbs  told  me  solemnly  that  he  had 
"got  good  again"  because  he  had  not 
been  whipped  as  I  had  been  advised  to 
whip  him. 

"When  they  were  telling  you  to  whip 
me,  I  made  up  my  mind  just  to  kill  my- 
self as  soon  as  you  had  done  it — not  to 
make  you  feel  bad,  but  because  it 
wouldn't  be  any  use  to  live  any  more 
again.  It  wouldn't  be  any  use  any  more, 
because  you  see  I  did  love  you  all  the 
time  I  was  saying  I  didn't,  but  I  couldn't 
stop.  And  if  you'd  whipped  me,  I'd 
known  you  couldn't  ever  understood  if 
I  tried  to  'splain.  I  felt  so  bad,  I  couldn't 
'splain.  And  if  I  couldn't  'splain  I  was 
going  to  be  dead  right  off.  " 

"  But  there  are  going  to  be  times  when 
it  is  needful  to  whip  you — I  think.  Am 


120       CRUMR3  AND  HIS  TIMES 

I  to  believe  that  you  mean  to  kill  your- 
self if  I  must  whip  you? " 

"  No,  you  just  spank  me  and  it  will  be 
all  right; — use  judgment. — Your  judg- 
ment, not  anybody's  else. "  (I  would 
not  have  smiled  even  under  cover  of  the 
dark,  for  a  fortune).  "I  don't  want 
you  ever  to  let  anybody  know  if  you 
must  whip  me  because  he  mightn't  ever 
know  after  that,  that  we  loved  each  other 
— and  I  couldn't  stand  it.  " 

Crumbs  was  jealous  of  the  dignity  of 
our  relations,  and  no  sane  person  could 
find  fault  with  that.  If  I  could  just 
keep  that  regard  for  our  mutual  affection 
and  friendship  big  within  him,  I  believed 
that  Crumbs  and  I  might  come  out  all 
right  after  all.  And  oh,  the  dear  gentle- 
man!— who  sometimes  still  forgot  to 
take  off  his  hat,  but  who  would  never, 
never  wash  his  linen  in  public  because  he 
"  couldn't  stand  it. " 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GENEROSITY  AND  SELF  CONTROL 

T  LEARNED  early  that  one  of  Crumb's 
strongest  original  tendencies  was  ap- 
preciation, or  gratitude,  and  that  he 
was  naturally  generous,  so  it  followed  that 
one  of  his  chief  delights  would  lie  in  the 
well-being  of  others.  However,  in  one 
so  young,  generosity  was  only  a  tendency, 
to  be  developed  or  lost  as  the  case  might 
be.  There  came  times  when  he  inevi- 
tably preferred  to  find  his  best  happiness 
in  more  direct  ways  than  in  the  good  of 
others;  but  the  "still  small  voice,"  hav- 
ing once  made  itself  strongly  heard,  gave 
Crumbs  no  peace,  however  much  his 
generous  tendency  became  subordinated. 
While  he  might  elect  ultimately  to  go 
through  life  pleasing  himself  at  the  ex- 
pense of  others,  he  could  never  like  many 
another,  do  so  without  experiencing  a 
torturing  reaction. 


122       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

If  Crumbs  were  going  to  live  for  self 
alone,  I  could  have  preferred  he  should  do 
so  without  regret.  A  state  of  complete 
indifference  would  be  better  for  himself 
as  well  as  for  the  people  whom  he  might 
ruin.  I  recalled  certain  notable  examples 
of  perversity  to  whose  weakness  of  dis- 
position crime  was  impossible,  remorse 
always  imminent,  but  who  averted  des- 
pair and  unhappiness  from  no  one. 
Such  people  make  eternal  demands  upon 
sympathy,  give  nothing,  but  require  the 
combined  moral  force  of  an  entire  family 
to  support  them.  I  desired  that  Crumbs 
should  be  something  definite,  and  it 
seemed  quite  likely  that  he  would  so 
turn  out. 

After  I  discovered  his  generous  ten- 
dency, it  became  my  habit  to  give  exces- 
sive expression  to  my  appreciation,  when 
he  thrust  upon  me  something  coveted  by 
himself.  It  struck  me  that  there  could 
be  no  more  successful  lure  than  the  cer- 
tain evidence  of  an  accomplished  pur- 
pose. This  method  worked  very  well 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       123 

for  a  long  time.  It  always  answered 
with  myself,  but  there  came  a  time,  in 
his  seventh  year,  when  alien  surroundings 
brought  to  the  surface  hitherto  un- 
suspected tendencies  and  very  human 
weaknesses,  such  as  revenge,  retaliation 
and  the  like. 

In  speaking  of  Crumbs  and  His  Times, 
it  now  becomes  easier  to  present  them  in 
their  negations  than  in  their  positive 
aspects.  There  was  a  point  of  view 
never  taught  him,  which  he  had  ab- 
sorbed, and  this  was  to  become  apparent 
only  when  his  mind  was  antagonised  by 
a  wholly  strange  presentment  of  life. 

There  is  a  give  and  take,  which  we  of 
large  wisdom  and  far-seeing  habit  recog- 
nise without  making  demonstration ;  the 
give  and  take  which  is  a  part  of  our 
method  of  self-preservation.  But  that 
"give"  of  reciprocity  is  a  "give"  quite 
apart  from  the  "give"  of  privilege;  it  is 
a  matter  of  expediency.  There  are 
people  to  whom  the  joy  of  generous 
impulse  is  all  unknown,  but  they  may  be 


i24       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Justice  itself,  and  give  the  full  measure 
of  what  they  receive  by  sheer  force  of 
selfish  intent.  This  sort  of  punctillious 
plan  works  very  well  indeed  where  life  is 
reduced  to  its  largest  material  terms — 
but  it  leaves  the  heart  cold.  It  ignores 
the  existence  of  disinterested  benevo- 
lence. 

It  was  just  before  his  seventh  birthday 
that  Crumbs  fell  foul  of  this  unprofitable 
class.  The  irresistible  demand  from 
within  to  more  than  share,  even  utterly 
to  sacrifice  their  own  bread  in  the  inter- 
ests of  others,  was  absent  among  those 
with  whom  Crumbs  was  now  associated, 
but  I  dare  say  a  share-and-share-alike 
system  prevailed,  in  its  most  painful 
precision.  Up  to  this  time,  he  had  not 
learned  that  as  applied  to  things  material 
there  was  any  other  conduct  in  life  than 
generous  conduct.  Now  he  witnessed 
a  new  regime. 

Henceforth,  was  Crumbs  to  be  either 
superlatively  fair  for  love  of  generosity, 
or  was  he  to  be  exacting  in  his  own  in- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       125 

terests? — which,  I  did  not  know  and  he 
did  not  know. 

For  many  days  the  new  regime  was  a 
source  of  marvel  to  him.  Later,  it 
roused  in  him  a  spirit  of  hate  and  of  re- 
bellion. The  cause  of  his  disturbance 
was  quite  unformulated  by  him,  but  it 
was  very  real.  He  did  not  even  know  to 
what  he  should  attribute  his  distraction ; 
but  one  day  his  misery  found  voice 
thus: 

"  I  don't  like  it.  I  hate  it.  I  won't 
give  anybody  anything.  Don't  nobody 
care ! "  For  the  first  time,  the  philosophy 
contained  in  those  three  words  became 
a  menace  to  his  dear  future. 

Don't  nobody  care! 

Something  should  have  been  done  by  a 
wise  mother,  but  Crumbs  and  I  had  no 
wisdom  to  fall  back  upon — only  his 
three  words  of  philosophy  and  our  af- 
fection. I  determined  not  to  pervert 
his  moral  sense  by  standing  for  that 
which  he  resented  and  which  was  con- 
trary to  our  familiar  practice  of  six  years : 


126       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

I  would  not  thus  avert  from  him  the 
Ancient  Chance. 

I  could  not  assure  Crumbs  that  he  was 
wrong:  he  was  right.  With  the  oppres- 
sive condition  of  precise  and  measured 
justice  about  us,  I  began  to  believe  it 
was  better  to  be  wrong  than  to  be  just. 
There  is  a  certain  high-sounding  preach- 
ment to  the  effect  that  one  should  be  just 
before  one  is  generous,  but  without  the 
spirit  of  generosity  as  a  pusher,  I  have 
never  known  anything  like  symmetrical 
justice.  One  shoulder  is  nearly  always 
higher  than  the  other.  Conscience  is 
there,  and  Intention  is  there,  but  Dis- 
crimination is  off  gathering  flowers  for 
the  funeral. 

We  were  at  this  time  in  the  mountains, 
where  the  butcher  and  baker  and 
candlestick-maker  came  over  the  hills 
periodically,  instead  of  habitually,  and 
delivered  to  us  whatever  they  saw  fit. 
Crumbs  and  these  people  were  friends. 
Alas  for  Crumbs!  It  was  the  butcher  who 
brought  about  the  inevitable. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       127 

He  robbed  someone's  cherry  tree  in 
Crumb's  behalf,  and  brought  him  the 
first  cherries  of  the  season.  They  were 
still  on  the  branch,  red  and  luscious. 
Crumbs  stripped  them  all  off  with  de- 
liberation, except  four.  Then  he  took 
the  branch  within  and  divided  up  with 
the  head  of  the  family  who  tasted, 
pronounced  the  cherries  good  and  in- 
advertently reached  for  more. 

"  Can't  have  any  more,  "  said  Crumbs. 
"There  are  only  four — 'n'  that's  your 
share. " 

The  head  of  the  family  apologised. 
Shortly  afterward  Crumbs  wandered  in- 
differently into  my  precincts  and  closed 
the  door;  immediately  his  conduct  under- 
went a  mighty  change.  It  rained  cher- 
ries. The  affluence  of  Crumb's  pockets 
was  surprising,  the  redness  of  his  face, 
the  trembling  of  his  hands  were  painful. 
It  was  a  fruity  and  emotional  crisis. 

"I  was  just  bein'  fair  with  her,"  he 
quavered.  "There  weren't  but  four  on 
that  limb — but  there's  bushels  for  you. " 


i28       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  Crumbs  with  only  two  cherries 
inside  a  small  boy's  capacity,  placed  his 
all  at  my  disposal. 

"  I  am  afraid  you  were  not  fair, "  I 
suggested.  "  It  was  not  fair  to  say  that 
you  had  only  four.  " 

"Didn't, — just  four  on  that  limb. 
These  weren't  mine.  They  were  yours.  " 

"Not  then." 

"Yep — made  up  my  mind  about  'em 
when  I  picked  'em  off  outside.  " 

"  That  is  the  letter  not  the  spirit  of  the 
law, "  I  said,  but  this  was  out  of  Crumb's 
depth.  He  was  momentarily  silenced 
but  rose,  triumphant: 

"Don't  nobody  care!"  Life  was  possi- 
bly beer  and  skittles  for  us  in  those  days, 
but  it  was  not  cakes  and  ale. 

It  was  Crumb's  first  real  brush  with 
the  world.  The  conditions  were  un- 
lovely to  him,  although  there  was  much 
good  to  admire  in  them,  but  for  a  broad- 
gauge  boy  they  were  bound  to  be  in- 
jurious. So  they  were,  but  if  hurtful  in 
some  ways  they  revealed  a  delightful 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       129 

truth  which  took  root  in  a  generous  soil. 
When  conditions  were  not  altogether 
favourable  to  happiness,  Crumbs  not  in- 
frequently said: 

"You  go  a-walking — an'  I'll  stay  and 
bear  it. " 

Thus  I  saw  that  though  unfavourable 
conditions  are  seldom  helpful  to  anyone, 
those  at  least  went  to  prove  that  the 
plan  of  living  up  to  a  child's  individu- 
ality is  not  abortive. 

After  a  first  resistence  to  conditions, 
conducted  on  the  lines  of  the  incident 
of  the  cherries,  Crumbs  seemed  to  accept 
the  situation  in  a  non-committal  way. 
That  one  of  his  pronounced  characteris- 
tics should  appear  passive  gave  me  more 
food  for  thought.  In  short,  Crumbs 
never  let  me  weary  for  lack  of  material ; 
my  chief  trouble  being  that  I  could  not 
think  fast  enough  to  keep  up  with  the 
progression  of  his  mind;  yet  in  com- 
parison with  some  people  I  was  a  light- 
ning calculator. 

Eventually,  the  problem  resolved  it- 


1 3o       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

self  thus:  the  time  had  come  when 
Crumbs  must  love  virtue  for  itself  alone. 
— That  state  of  mind,  when  all  is  said, 
implies  conceit;  a  kind  of  Thank-God-I- 
am-not-as-other-men  attitude,  which  may 
be  deplorable,  but  its  criminality  must 
be  relatively  considered.  In  comparison 
with  some  things,  it  is  godly! 

I  must  either  permit  Crumbs  actively 
to  hate  his  surroundings,  or  else  accept  his 
passive  contempt  for  them.  He  had  to 
learn  that  unlovely  things  are  the  acci- 
dents of  life,  the  exceptions  to  its  nice 
refinements  which  prove  the  rule  that 
all  the  world  is  beautiful.  Cynicism  and 
Crumbs  were  not  so  far  apart  that  I 
could  safely  count  upon  their  never 
meeting.  "  Don't  nobody  care "  was 
pretty  frequently  in  my  ears  and  in  my 
thoughts,  in  this  transition  stage. 
Crumbs  must  be  taught  the  difference 
between  the  demands  of  ordinary  civ- 
ility and  insincerity.  He  had  to  learn 
that  civility  to  others  was  after  all  a 
tribute  to  his  own  dignity,  while  insin- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       131 

cerity  was  an  attribute  of  the  unre- 
generate.  They  were  nice  propositions 
that  could  be  elucidated  only  by  acci- 
dent. 

For  a  long  time,  Crumbs  had  to  take 
my  word  for  it  that  seemly  demeanour 
toward  people  of  whom  he  did  not  ap- 
prove, was  not  "just  lies."  His  dis- 
approval would  "out  "in  hazardous  ways. 
He  would  make  ingenious  faces  in 
secret,  when  nature  too  strongly  rebelled ; 
grimaces  sometimes  openly  surprised, 
and  which  covered  both  him  and  me  with 
confusion.  Indeed  tragedy  became  so  im- 
minent that  once  Crumbs  and  I  withdrew 
to  the  lake-side  nearby  for  a  thrashing. 
I  explained  that  it  would  hurt  me  more 
than  it  did  him ;  and  he  told  me  tearfully 
"I'll  let  you  off  this  time.  "  The  session 
was  a  strange  mingling  of  the  comic  and 
tragic,  but  it  presented  a  proposition 
and  instituted  a  new  regime. 

He  was  unaware  that  he  had  done 
anything  positively  wrong  and  so  was  I; 
but  I  explained  that  he  had  fallen  into  a 


1 32       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

way  quite  unbeautiful,  and  while  that 
which  was  about  to  happen  was  not  pre- 
cisely punishment,  it  was  to  be  con- 
sidered by  him  in  the  light  of  a  reminder. 
For  the  first  time,  I  was  compelled  to 
approach  the  problem  in  a  manner 
personal  and  first  hand.  I  asked  Crumbs 
if  he  desired  to  be  in  all  respects  like 
those  worthy  but  unsatisfactory  people 
who  had  caused  his  restiveness.  He 
eagerly  did  not.  Then  I  made  clear  to 
him  that  a  long  season  of  self-control,  to 
end  only  with  the  grave,  must  begin  at 
once;  that  flesh  and  spirit  were  liable 
to  riot  upon  occasion  and  almost  without 
warning,  and  that  it  must  more  than  ever 
become  my  business  in  life  to  cure  his 
uncontrol.  I  made  it  plain  that  I  knew 
from  personal  experience  how  uncontrol 
brought  its  own  punishment;  a  punish- 
ment so  bitter  that  it  deserved  none 
other,  and  by  making  this  personal 
history  picturesque  I  held  Crumbs'  atten- 
tion. To  avert  intolerable  consequences, 
I  must  help  him  to  remember.  Some- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES     133 

times  the  reminder  to  walk  in  the  straight 
and  narrow  way  would  take  one  form, 
sometimes  another,  We  should  have  to 
be  governed  by  circumstances. 

He  took  his  thrashing  patiently,  and 
we  shed  tears  together,  but  after  it  was 
over,  Crumbs  perked  up  instantly  and 
remarked : 

"Don't  you  cry.  You  didn't  make 
any  faces  and  don't  have  to  be  reminded, 
'n'  I've  got  licked  'n'  I  can't  stand  any 
more. " 

Dear  Crumbs!  So  small,  so  honest  a 
gentleman !  If  only  he  had  had  a  set  of 
good  manners  to  go  with  it — but  then 
he  hadn't  as  yet. 

As  he  walked  toward  the  house  in 
silence,  he  remarked: 

"That's  like  Mulvaney  getting  licked 
for  my  badness — when  I  was  young,  isn't 
it  ? "  I  saw  the  relation  of  ideas,  but  did 
not  think  it  well  to  admit  it. 

"Do  you  think  so?"  I  asked. 

"  Huh-huh !  If  nobody  had  made  me 
feel  queer,  I  wouldn  t  'a  made  faces.  I 


i34     CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

think  it  isn't  square,  but — don't  nobody 
care!" 

The  stoical  touch  made  the  night  wind 
colder  to  me,  but  I  hoped  there  would  be 
enough  of  affection  in  reserve  for  Crumbs 
as  he  went  through  life,  to  raise  the  tem- 
perature. 

Thus,  he  resigned  himself.  His  po- 
liteness did  not  become  oppressive  but 
neither  did  his  conduct  remain  unseemly. 

Crumbs  got  whipped  oftener  during 
that  seventh  year  than  in  any  other 
one  of  his  life;  but  I  do  not  recall  that 
upon  any  occasion  did  a  whipping  take 
the  form  of  punishment.  It  was  too  seri- 
ous a  matter  with  us  for  that.  It  stood  for 
regret,  for  a  chastened  mind,  for  a  re- 
minder, for  a  great  many  things  that  bore 
no  smack  of  brutality.  These  whippings 
were  flagellations  of  the  soul,  so  to  speak, 
and  the  physical  suffering  was  secondary. 
If  this  had  not  been  true,  I  could  not 
have  whipped  him  at  all,  any  time  after 
his  fifth  year,  because  Crumbs  was, 
physically,  too  strong  for  me.  I  think 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       135 

he  perceived  this,  and  that  was  the  reason 
why  he  stood  up  so  like  a  gentlemen  at 
those  moments.  I  explained  to  him 
once  that  unless  he  made  it  very  con- 
venient for  me  indeed,  I  should  not  be 
able  to  whip  him  at  all.  The  situation 
may  not  have  been  usual,  but  I  fancy  it 
could  be  brought  about  with  almost  any 
child.  It  is  a  simply  a  matter  of  the 
"  point  of  view, "  unfaltering  patience, 
and  love  to  spare. 

The  seventh  year  led  to  many  con- 
fidences and  quiet  causeries  between  us. 
Among  other  things  Crumbs  learned  to 
stick  to  conversational  abstractions,  to 
avoid  personalities.  Certain  conditions 
warranted  many  intimate  conversations 
between  us,  and  Crumbs  learned  early  in 
the  game  that  only  the  unregenerate  dis- 
cuss the  personal  eccentricities  of  people ; 
that  by  intelligent  effort,  almost  any- 
thing can  be  turned  into  an  abstraction. 
All  this  led  to  numerous  pros]  and 
cons. 

"If  you  behave  so  'queer'  that  you 


i36       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

aren't  loved,  what  happens?"  was 
Crumbs'  inquiry. 

"  Well,  sometimes  one  thing  and  some- 
times another;  but  very  often  totally 
innocent  persons  have  to  be  taken  down 
to  the  beach  and  birched. "  Crumbs 
turned  his  eyes  upon  me,  and  slowly 
nodded. 

"  Like  Mul  getting  licked  for  me  when 
I  was  young. "  Vicarious  punishment 
continued  to  be  an  element  altogether 
startling  and  impressive  to  him.  I 
hoped  he  would  never  develop  the  vi- 
carious conscience,  however. 

"  It  seems  to  me  if  you  don't  behave 
so  you  are  woved  awfully,  you  don't 
have  such  a  dreadful  good  time  yourself," 
he  reflected.  I  knew  of  whom  and 
what  he  was  thinking,  but  I  answered: 

" Oh,  I  don't  know:  I've  noticed  that 
some  people  who  are  not  specially  lovable, 
worry  less  than  those  who  love  and  are 
more  beloved. " 

Crumbs  thought  along  his  own  lines  for 
a  moment  before  elucidating  his  point. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES     137 

"Well,  Aunt" — he  paused,  remem- 
bering to  stick  to  abstractions.  "  I  have 
seen  people, "  he  went  on  "  who  weren't 
woved  in  our  style,  and  if  they  do  get 
most  everything  they  want,  they  don't 
sound  wike  it — and  they  don't  wook 
wike  it.  I've  seen  people, "  he  contin- 
ued, speaking  judicially,  "who  never 
could  a  had  the  big  feeling  in  their 
throats  wike  I  have  when  you  and  I  wook 
at  each  other.  I  wook  at  you  and — and 
it's  just  bully. "  He  nodded  solemnly 
and  put  his  hand  to  his  throat,  while  his 
eyes  became  suffused. 

"  I  feel  it  now,"  he  said. 

Crumbs  had  got  to  the  bottom  of  things 
after  all,  and  it  almost  reconciled  me  to 
his  gaucheries  of  conduct.  It  had  been  a 
lively  question  with  me  whether  he  was 
going  to  assimilate  the  new  thoughts,  and 
the  emotional  sterility  surrounding  him, 
or  whether  these  conditions  would  serve 
their  turn  as  a  fearsome  example.  It 
began  to  look  as  if  Crumbs  were  going 
to  learn  of  adversity.  I  was  sorry  if 


i38       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

it  had  to  be  so,  but  rejoiced  that  all 
things  seemed  to  work  together  for  good 
to  those  who  loved — somebody  or 
something.  Crumbs  loved  me  beyond  all 
doubt. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FACT   VERSUS   TRUTH 

TN  course  of  time  I  found  something 
as  important  as  Crumb's  emotions  to 
be  in  danger.  His  excellent  intelligence 
was  being  tampered  with.  He  knew 
well  how  to  be  sophistical  for  his  own  pur- 
poses, and  the  problem  of  truth  in  the 
letter  as  in  the  spirit,  had  of  late  become 
a  serious  one.  While  I  was  doing  my 
best,  I  suddenly  discovered  that  the 
enemy  Literality,  was  in  camp  and  must 
be  ousted.  Those  about  us  were  slaves 
both  to  Fact  and  to  Truth,  but  they 
could  not  discriminate  the  one  from  the 
other.  In  their  own  cases  perhaps  it  no 
longer  mattered  very  much.  Their  lives 
would  of  necessity  always  be  circum- 
scribed and  they  were  mature  people, 
who  had  learned  their  limited  lessons  in  a 
way  that  they  could  never  unlearn,  but 


1 40       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

in  Crumbs'  case,  it  mattered  very  much. 

I  had  found  out  for  a  certainty  that 
Crumbs  was  going  to  be  something  defi- 
nite as  I  wished  him  to  be ;  and  if  he  was 
not  going  to  be  definitely  good  then  he 
was  going  to  be  definitely  bad,  so  here 
confronting  him  and  me,  was  that  horrid 
shame  of  well-made  minds,  Literality. 
It  seemed  to  fill  all  space. 

I  recognised  this  first  when  I  heard 
Crumbs,  whose  ideas  of  a  joke  were  only 
seven  years  old  at  best,  say  to  a  member 
of  the  family  with  whom  we  were  placed : 

"Wook  at  Mulvaney  saying  his  pray- 
ers. "  The  distressing  reply  came: 

"  Don't  you  know  that  is  a  lie,  Crumbs? 
Don't  you  know  if  you  tell  a  lie  it  is 
wicked,  and  children  should  be  whipped 
for  it?"  Crumbs  had  no  answer.  For 
once  he  was  paralysed  into  silence. 

Crumbs  had  been  taught  to  tell  the 
truth  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  but 
truth  did  not  include  any  conclusion  such 
as  this.  Probably  "taught"  is  not  the 
correct  expression,  when  the  manner  of 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       141 

Crumbs'  education  is  under  discussion; 
"  insinuated, "  is  more  nearly  right.  A 
regard  for  truth  had  been  insinuated  into 
Crumbs'  system  since  his  first  hour, 
therefore  he  might  be  called  constitu- 
tionally truthful.  He  wore  truth  as  he 
did  his  shirt — as  something  that  could 
not  be  dispensed  with. 

Literality  was  one  of  those  original 
tendencies  which  I  had  grubbed  up,  and 
which  I  meant  to  root  out  if  Crumbs, 
himself,  came  with  it. 

The  literal  mind  does  a  large  amount 
of  harm  to  other  people,  even  if  it 
be  not  the  symbol  of  hopeless  limi- 
tation. Crumbs  need  not  be  literal  in 
his  interpretations,  when  it  was  kinder 
to  be  otherwise,  nor  in  his  statements, 
when  it  was  more  civil  not  to  be. 
If  he  became  literal  he  would  never 
be  a  good  business  man,  nor  an  artist, 
nor  an  agreeable  friend,  nor  a  tolerable 
husband,  nor  a  just  father,  nor  "good 
form,"  nor  be  inspired  with  the  real 
spirit  of  truth;  in  short  he  could 


142       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

never  be  anything  that  was  profitable  or 
nice. 

Truthful  Crumbs  had  said  that  his  dog 
was  saying  his  prayers,  and  had  been 
literally  called  a  liar — which  was  neither 
true  nor  polite.  I  was  accustomed  to 
let  Crumbs  take  the  initiative :  he  was  so 
much  cleverer  than  I.  In  time  he 
sought  me. 

"Say,  is  she  crazy?"  he  asked,  still 
too  disturbed  to  elaborate  his  thought. 

There  are  not  many  things  which  can 
be  explained  to  a  little  child  with  telling, 
lasting  results.  Life  to  such  a  one  is 
drama — comedy-drama  or  tragedy — ac- 
cording to  the  manner  of  presentation; 
but,  however  presented,  it  is  all  action. 
He  reasons  after  the  fact,  and  from  the 
fact;  seldom  before  the  fact.  It  was 
beyond  my  powers  to  explain  to  Crumbs 
how  Literalness  had  stepped  in  and 
spoiled  the  good  game  of  Truth.  The 
knowledge  would  have  to  be  insinuated 
by  actual  demonstration,  and  thinking 
how  to  do  it  kept  me  awake  nights. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        143 

"  If  she  isn't  crazy,  then  I  think  she  is 
telling  lies, ''  said  Crumbs  resuming  the 
subject.  "Because  you  see  she  knew  Mul- 
vaney  couldn't  be  saying  prayers.  She 
knew  if  he  could  say  'em,  I  wouldn't  tell 
her  so  unless  he  was  doing  it  for  sure.  " — 
Crumbs  was  so  completely  satisfied  with 
his  own  impregnability,  since  his  truth- 
fulness was  under  discussion,  thathe  could 
argue  only  from  one  side,  but  Fate  was  to 
rescue  us  once  more.  It  happened  thus : 

A  day  later,  while  the  incident  was 
still  fresh  in  our  minds,  a  message  was 
conveyed  to  me  in  Crumbs'  presence: 

"  A —  said  for  you  to  meet  her  in  town 
at  half  past  three" — we  were  living  in  the 
country — "and  if  you  don't  want  to 
you  need  not. "  Crumbs  was  particularly 
fond  of  "  A— ''  and  he  arose  in  wrath. 

"She  didn't  say  any  such  thing,  and 
she  was  as  loving  as  could  be.  I  heard 
her" — once  more  nothing  but  death 
could  stop  him.  "She  said  if — if — " 
He  stopped  of  his  own  accord.  Life  had 
become  too  much  for  him. 


144       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"Weil,''  said  the  Member  of  the 
Family,  sternly,  "  I  will  hear  from  you 
iust  what  she  did  say."  But  Crumbs 
could  not  speak.  I  knew  all  about  it, 
but  he  did  not,  nor  did  the  Member  of  the 
Family.  All  her  life  her  tone  and  words 
had  been  literal,  and  by  those  of  us  who 
knew  her  uncompromising  goodness,  this 
was  understood. 

'*  Yes,  Crumbs,  we  will  hear  just  what 
A—  said. " 

"She  said  what  Aunt  G —  said — but 
didn't  mean  it;  and  so  iust  the  same 
Aunt  G —  has  told  a  lie  on  her.  "  Deep! 
deep!  and  what  was  to  be  done?  Well, 
this  helped — along  with  a  good  many 
other  examples — to  teach  Crumbs  that 
good  Fact  is  not  necessarily  good  Truth. 

When  quite  alone,  I  asked  him  to  tell 
me  in  confidence  precisely  what  "A — " 
had  seemed  to  him  to  say,  which  was 
this:  "  If  H —  feels  like  coming  into  town 
to-day  at  half-past  three,  I  will  be  at  such 
a  point,  and  we  can  put  in  a  little  time 
together.  Tell  her  not  to  come  at  any 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES     145 

inconvenience  to  herself. "  Now.  this 
was  a  good  deal  to  deduce  from  a  couple 
of  dozen  words,  but  then  Crumbs'  love 
of  Truth,  and  his  understanding  of  it,  had 
made  him  include  the  tone  and  manner 
in  which  those  words  were  uttered.  In 
the  absence  of  tone  and  manner,  the  bald 
statement  resulted  in  a  perversion  of  the 
Truth  for  which  he  would  not  stand,  be- 
ing in  love  with  his  cousin. 

Could  I  expect  Crumbs  to  be  beloved 
by  anybody  but  me?  Hardly.  His 
methods  were  too  crude,  even  if  not 
quite  literal.  And  again,  Crumbs,  who 
was  to  be  a  good  man  or  a  bad  one  ac- 
cording to  the  emotional  conditions 
about  him,  promised  to  create  conditions 
for  himself  from  which  no  human  being 
could  rescue  him. 

According  to  theory  and  rule,  un- 
emotional conditions  and  literal  living 
were  the  proper  environment  to  neutral- 
ise his  excessive  tendencies.  Theoret- 
ically, Crumbs'  nervous  system  should 
have  been  greatly  benefited  by  the  sit- 


146        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

uation.  Well,  you  may  pour  oil  and 
water  together,  but  you've  got  to  have 
a  third  agent  to  make  an  emulsion. 
Crumbs'  third  agent  was  affection,  ap- 
proval, and  he  had  almost  destroyed  his 
agent.  Nobody  heartily  approved  of 
Crumbs  but  me  and  Mulvaney  perhaps, 
and  I  could  not  blame  anybody  but 
Crumbs  and  myself.  His  personality 
was  fascinating  at  times,  attractive  al- 
ways, hence  it  was  not  appearances  that 
were  against  him  but  his  "  point  of  view,  " 
unrelieved  by  good  manners. 

I  could  not  find  fault  with  the  point 
of  view,  because  I  had  been  insinuating 
that  upon  him  since  he  was  born,  and  I 
was  still  unconvinced  that  it  was  wrong. 
I  was  able  to  see  that  the  real  trouble  lay 
not  with  his  point  of  view,  which  was 
much  like  that  of  all  decent  folk,  but 
with  his  method,  and  I  could  not  provide 
a  silk-finish  method,  for  a  seven-year-old 
boy. 

Before  he  was  seven,  he  had  not  even 
the  superficial  graces  which  make  bad 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       147 

children  endurable — which  even  make 
them  ornaments  to  society.  I  had  not 
been  able  to  earn  Crumbs'  living,  to  care 
for  him  in  sickness  and  in  health,  to  make 
him  happy,  and  to  give  him  A  i  manners, 
all  at  the  same  time.  I  had  to  do  a  good 
deal  in  sections — the  nursing  and  the 
living ;  but  the  loving  and  its  substantial 
results  had  to  go  on  all  the  time,  even  in 
our  sleep. 

Frequently,  after  I  had  got  him 
trained  not  to  put  his  feet  on  the  ceiling, 
he  would  seek  that  form  of  repose  in  some 
thoughtful  moment,  after  some  serious 
passage  between  us.  He  sought  it  all 
unconscious  of  its  inelegance;  and  I 
never  felt  justified  in  interrupting 
Crumbs'  train  of  thought  in  those  eventful 
moments.  I  knew  he  had  arrived  at  con- 
clusions when  in  that  position  — that  were 
someday  to  put  out  a  fire,  save  another 
man's  life  or  just  a  human  being's  feel- 
ings. He  evolved  some  large  ideas  while 
in  this  inverted,  unpleasing  position,  and 
while  others  were  writhing  under  the 


148       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

monstrousness  of  his  conduct.  I  knew 
he  was  doing  wrong,  but  I  could  not 
help  it. 

When  Crumbs  has  chosen  to  think,  I 
have  held  my  breath,  and  have  frequently 
put  a  newspaper  between  his  heels  and 
the  French  polish,  when  I  have  thought  I 
could  do  so  without  interrupting  him. 
Sometimes,  as  I  have  done  this,  Crumbs 
has  come  to;  has  taken  down  his  feet 
and  said;  "I  didn't  think."  This 
proved  that  he  had  no  antagonism  to 
decent  forms,  only  he  "  didn't  think. " 

Maybe  I  should  have  thrashed  him;  I 
don't  know.  I  know  that  I  hoped  good 
form  would  some  day  seem  to  Crumbs  to 
be  one  of  the  most  worthy  and  serious 
problems  of  life.  I  more  or  less  believed 
that  he  would  be  alert  enough  to  observe 
that  good  form  was  really  that  symbol  of 
good  feeling  and  good  conscience  neces- 
sary to  the  preservation  of  peace  between 
nations  and  people. 

However  it  was  to  be  at  his  noon-day, 
at  a  little  before  seven  Crumbs  was  still 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 


149 


unpopular,  quite  apart  from  his  conduct, 
by  which  alas!  we  must  be  judged. — 

He  truly  deserved  to  be  popular,  even 
as  he  longed  to  be.  Disapproval  was  al- 
most as  disastrous  to  him  as  a  congestive 
chill.  Poor  Crumbs!  Dear  Crumbs! 

Yes,  I  decided  that  the  only  way  I 
could  make  him  "think"  to  be  well 
mannered  according  to  essential  form — 
which  is  all  that  a  little  child  may  be 
permitted  to  go  by — was  to  make  him 
understand  that  good  manners  were 
invented  for  the  mutual  convenience 
of  people.  Thus  I  would  be  able  to  put 
form  on  the  high  plane  of  love  for  ones 
neighbour.  So  we  worked  around  to  love 
in  the  end,  and  love  was  something  that 
Crumbs  could  understand  at  any  age, 
because  love  is  elemental. 

This  method  was  a  good  deal  like 
that  of  learning  languages  by  learning 
Dutch  first  of  all,  and  then  acquiring  the 
others  by  a  comparison  of  the  Dutch 
Bible  with  the  Italian  Bible,  or  the  French 
Bible  or  the — well,  Love  is  the  Volapuk 


150       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  all  humanity,  and  it  is  good  that  it  is 
so  easily  learned  and  so  pleasant  to 
remember.  Whenever  I  thought  out 
Crumbs  with  love  for  my  illuminator,  I 
began  to  hope  again.  It  was  better  than 
wisdom,  because  from  Love,  Wisdom 
may  grow;  but  very  frequently  Love 
does  not  spring  full-grown  or  any  other 
way,  from  the  loins  of  Wisdom. 

I  learned  in  those  days  how  certainly 
the  best  within  us  responds  to  the  best 
in  others,  and  how  the  worst  in  others  is 
re-echoed  in  ourselves.  Crumbs'  word  had 
heretofore  been  respected.  There  were 
times  now  when  it  was  not,  and  he  devel- 
oped a  tendency  to  lie.  Affection  alone 
was  to  be  the  corrective.  Crumbs  was 
accused  of  leaving  a  peach-pit  in  an  un- 
seemly place,  and  he  denied  having  done 
so.  His  sense  of  injustice  was  bringing 
the  demon  into  his  face,  when  he  appeared 
before  me  and  explained  the  matter. 
He  had  been  accused  upon  the  slender 
evidence  of  an  unsound  judgment  which 
assumed  that  when  things  went  wrong, 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       151 

or  when  material  was  found  misplaced 
it  was  immaturity  that  was  responsible. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  myself,  was  the 
culprit.  Crumbs  could  not  exonerate 
himself,  because  the  witness  of  another's 
imagination  was  so  much  stronger  as 
evidence,  than  the  word  of  a  boy  who 
had  not  yet  learned  the  penalties  of 
truth-telling.  Accident  alone  cleared 
him.  It  was  I  who  had  disgraced  the 
family.  I  started  at  once  to  set  the 
matter  right,  and  have  the  criticism 
placed  where  it  belonged,  but  when 
Crumbs  discovered  I  was  the  culprit,  he 
demanded  that  I  be  silent  because  "If 
you  tell,  they'll  get  after  you  too — and 
/  don't  mind. " 

If  he  broke  a  dish,  he  assumed  that 
my  sympathy  was  his,  because  it  had 
never  till  now  occurred  to  him  that  any 
sane  person  wantonly  destroyed  things. 
But  now  he  found  out  that  though  older 
people  were  pardoned  for  their  accidents, 
little  children  were  not ;  and  he  expressed 
his  opinion  of  the  matter  to  me  on  one 


1 52        CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

occasion  when  we  had  entered  into  our 
closet  and  had  shut  the  door. 

"  When  I  get  into  trouble  any  more  I'm 
going  to  lie  about  it — because  I  fink  all 
these  people  are  crazy,  and  it  isn't  safe  to 
tell  'em  what  happens  to  you.  " 

Crumbs'  reasoning  was  very  primitive 
— straight  from  effect  to  cause  or  from 
cause  to  effect,  without  amelioration 
or  interruption. 

It  was  not  a  very  bad  reasoning,  but  one 
had  to  be  brought  up  to  understand  it. 
A  lie  was  no  longer  an  outrage  upon  fair- 
ness: it  now  seemed  to  him  to  have  be- 
come necessary,  if  he  would  secure  fair 
treatment  for  himself. 

However  Crumbs  was  pretty  well 
grounded  by  this  seventh  year,  and  he 
had  a  good  many  things  to  fall  back 
upon  by  way  of  help.  For  example, 
he  had  confidence  in  me,  and  what 
he  could  not  translate  for  himself,  he 
was  now  willing  to  accept  from  me 
as  fact; — a  thing  which  he  would  not 
have  been  willing  to  do  in  his  littlest 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        153 

childhood.  After  a  time  or  two,  Crumbs 
began  to  see  that  even  I  should  be  unable 
to  believe  him  if  he  made  lying  one  of  his 
accomplishments.  I  think  he  did  not 
care  particularly  if  anyone  else  about 
him  believed  him  or  not,  but  certainly 
it  would  be  inconvenient  to  lose  my  con- 
fidence. Thus  he  dropped  lying,  as  in- 
expedient, and  when  he  felt  the  injustice 
of  his  conditions  he  grew  into  the  habit 
of  saying.  "  Don't  nobody  care.  "  Once 
he  remarked  to  me  "  Isn't  it  redickelous? " 
and  so  it  was.  So  '  redickelous '  that  our 
sense  of  humour  saved  the  day. 

Truth  was  so  constitutional  with  him 
that  one  day  when  he  had  clipped 
Mulvaney's  hair  on  one  side  with  my 
shears,  and  the  dog  presented  an  ap- 
pearance quite  unlike  a  French  poodle 
which  Crumbs  had  tried  to  have  him 
emulate,  I  heard  the  groceryman  say 
outside: 

"  You  had  better  come  along  with  me 
Mr.  Crumbs,  before  your  mother  finds 
out  it  was  you  who  sheared  the  dog." 


iS4       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"Do  you  think  she'd  make  a  fuss?" 
"  Sure.  You  come  along  down  the  road 
with  me — and  she'll  think  the  folks  next 
door  did  it. " 

"Oh,  Lord!"  said  Crumbs  "then  I 
guess  I'd  better  go  and  tell  her  quick, " 
which  was  satisfactory  enough  evidence 
to  exonerate  him  from  meanness  of  spirit, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  grand  jury,  his  mother. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    SEVENTH    YEAR 

CERTAIN  things  which  came  along 
^  in  that  seventh  year  were  difficult, 
but  not  impossible  to  accomplish,  if 
a  woman  sat  up  nights.  One  of  these 
was  the  forming  of  class  distinctions  in  a 
little  child's  mind,  without  running  into 
snobbishness.  There  comes  a  time  when 
a  child  must  learn  that  there  are  differ- 
ences in  people,  which  he  must  take  into 
account  in  choosing  his  friends  and  in 
forming  his  associations.  Crumbs  was 
democratic.  He  loved  the  grocer's  boy, 
which  proved  to  me  that  his  untram- 
melled instincts  were  very  good  indeed, 
and  that  his  first  exhibition  of  taste, 
demonstrated  in  this  friendship,  was  not 
to  be  criticised;  but  there  are  grocer- 
boys  and  grocer-boys,  as  there  are 
princes  and  princes.  There  came  another 

'55 


156       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

grocer-boy  with  whom  Crumbs'  longed 
to  associate,  because  he  could  "swim 
just  like  anything. "  I  knew  he  also 
could  curse  "  just  like  anything  "  and  this 
time  Crumbs'  choice  was  not  my  choice. 
I  told  him  that  I  objected  to  number 
two  grocer-boy  because  he  was  of  another 
class,  and  should  not  be  fraternised 
with.  Then  Crumbs  wished  to  know 
why  he  was  of  another  class,  and  alto- 
gether we  got  badly  mixed  on  the 
question  of  grocer-boys,  good,  bad  and 
indifferent;  of  class,  of  Crumbs,  and  of 
prejudices.  The  end  of  it  was  that 
Crumbs  was  made,  arbitrarily,  to  obey, 
though  still  hankering  after  number  two 
grocer-boy. 

One  day  an  automobile  stopped  at  the 
door  and  its  driver  asked  for  a  bucket 
of  water  to  help  out  his  machinery. 
The  number  two  grocer-boy  was  sitting 
on  the  curb  and  he  went  round  to  fetch 
the  water,  while  Crumbs  and  the  chauffeur 
became  engaged  in  a  conversation  which 
greatly  pleased  Crumbs.  It  had  rela- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        157 

tion  to  wheels  and  cogs  and  carbureters 
and  washers  and  to  other  laundry-like 
things,  no  doubt.  When  number  two 
grocer-boy  came  with  the  water  he  said: 
"Give  me  fT  cents?"  and  the  machine 
folk  cheerfully  complied  with  the  request. 
Then  Number  Two  went  off.  Crumbs 
lingered  and  watched  proceedings. 
When  the  water  had  served  its  purpose 
and  the  pail  was  empty,  the  driver 
handed  it  to  Crumbs,  asking  him  if  he 
would  kindly  take  it  back.  Crumbs 
assented  with  alacrity,  and  certainly 
with  pleasure,  since  he  had  a  sort  of 
passion  for  being  useful  to  grown 
folks. 

Then  the  driver  called  out:  "Here, 
my  boy!  Take  this. "  He  put  ten  cents 
into  Crumbs'  hand  and  then  Crumbs  was 
in  trouble.  He  had  the  ten  cents  and  the 
pail,  and  the  machine  party  was  gone. 
Crumbs  had  been  instructed  in  the 
matter  of  receiving  monetary  gifts 
which  were  always  a  source  of  much 
annoyance  both  to  him  and  me. 


158       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Well-meaning  friends  who  give  chil- 
dren money  are  the  cause  of  more  dis- 
turbance than  they  are  aware.  There 
were  times  when  it  would  have  been 
a  crime  for  Crumbs  to  decline  the 
stray  pennies  pressed  upon  him,  because 
the  givers  would  not  have  grasped  any 
motive  whatever  for  his  refusal.  There 
were  others  who  could  be  politely  but 
firmly  set  aside.  They  would  not  think 
the  boy  inappreciative,  nor  yet  "set-up, " 
but  instead  his  dignity  would  be  res- 
pected. 

Crumbs  had  an  instinct  which  half 
revealed  to  him  the  distinction  between 
people  and  people.  He  returned  to  the 
house,  worried.  "I  have  the  money 
and  they  are  gone, "  he  said.  "  What 
ought  I  to  do?" 

"I  guess  you  can't  very  well  do  any- 
thing upon  this  occasion.  You  were 
with  Number  Two  who  asked  for  money 
because  he  had  rendered  a  service. 
People  are  known  by  the  company  they 
keep.  I  guess  you'll  have  to  stand  it. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       159 

Those  people  didn't  think  much  of  you 
probably,  or  they  wouldn't  have  offered 
you  money  for  a  personal  favour.  Of 
course  they  thought  you  wanted  it — 
there  was  Number  Two  who  had  asked 
for  it,  and  you  were  with  him." 

Crumbs  made  his  own  class  distinctions 
after  that.  It  was  a  peculiarly  complete 
demonstration  of  cause  and  effect;  but 
this  matter  of  unearned  increment  was 
a  touchy  point  with  Crumbs. 

Later  on  there  arose  considerable  dif- 
ficulty anent  the  matter  of  material 
honesty.  Crumbs  had  long  since  learned 
that  things  which  were  not  his  were  to  be 
let  alone,  but  the  basic  principle  of  hon- 
esty was  not  particularly  understood  by 
him.  As  he  had  comprehended  such 
matters,  the  things  of  others  were  to  be 
avoided  because  others  would  be  incon- 
venienced if  deprived  of  them ;  but  there 
came  a  day  when  he  so  coveted 
what  was  not  his,  that  he  seriously 
thought  out  the  problem  for  himself,  and 
he  thought  wrong.  It  was  the  case  of  the 


160       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

spring  overcoat  so  dreaded  by  me;  the 
subject  of  my  endless  fearful  imaginings. 
The  incident  of  the  spring  overcoat  had 
arrived. 

A  building  was  in  process  of  erection 
near  by,  and  among  other  supplies  of  the 
contractor's  were  some  iron  rods,  made 
with  cross  pieces,  which  Crumbs  believed 
would  make  admirable  picks  for  small 
boys.  He  had  long  coveted  a  pick. 
There  were  hundreds  of  them  at  hand. 
One  day  he  approached  the  "boss"  and 
presented  the  case  to  him.  He  offered 
three  cents — all  he  at  that  moment 
possessed — for  one.  The  "boss"  told 
him  to  be  off,  that  the  "picks"  were 
needed  in  building,  and  were  not  for 
covetous  creatures  like  Crumbs. 

The  explanation  was  unsatisfactory  to 
Crumbs  and  his  disappointment  keen. 
He  told  me  that  he  had  offered  to  pay 
for  the  man's  "  picks, "  that  the  man  had 
hundreds  of  them,  and  he  guessed  the 
man  was  a  pretty  mean  man.  I  paid  no 
special  attention  to  the  incident,  hardly 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       161 

heard  Crumbs'  statement,  and  dismissed 
the  matter  from  my  mind.  A  day  later 
Crumbs  came  to  me  in  -excitement,  exhib- 
ited a  "pick,"  and  explained  with  elation 
how  he  had  grabbed  the  instrument  when 
the  "boss"  wasn't  looking.  I  asked  him 
why  he  had  stolen.  He  was  outraged. 

"  I  haven't  stolen.  I  offered  to  pay 
for  it  an'  he  was  a  mean  man.  He's 
got  hundreds  and  don't  need  'em  all. 
He  can't  need  'em  all.  And  when  he 
wouldn't  sell  'em  nor  be  kind,  I  just 
thought  out  how  to  get  it  for  myself .  If  he 
hadn't  but  a  few  I  wouldn't  have  done  it, 
but  he's  just  mean.  I'd  give  him  half  of 
'em  if  they  were  mine  and  he  asked  for 
one."  Fortunately,  the  officers  at  the 
police  station  over  the  way,  were  not 
entirely  strange  to  me.  I  explained  to 
Crumbs  that  he  must  either  go  back  and 
openly  restore  the  "pick"  or  he  must 
stand  the  chances  of  arrest.  If  he  should 
escape  arrest  he  would  have  to  endure 
isolation;  and  my  contempt  for  him 
would  be  eternal. 


1 62       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Wouldn't  I  let  him  stay  with  me  any 
more?  His  tone  was  awesome. 

Yes,  he  could  stay,  but  he  would  be  to 
me  after  that  as  if  he  were  some  strange 
boy — one  I  should  never  learn  to  like. 
This  was  a  serious  proposition.  There 
was  Crumbs'  side  of  the  case  as  well  as 
the  legitimate  side.  To  him,  it  was  a 
matter  of  having  possessed  himself  of 
that  to  which  he  had  a  right,  since  he  be- 
lieved no  one  else  needed  it,  and  since  the 
world  was  so  hard  that  it  refused  a  boy 
even  those  joys  he  was  ready  to  pay  for. 

"Are  you  going  down  to  give  that  man 
his  pick?"  I  asked. 

"  I — don't — know, "  he  answered.  "  I'm 
going  to  think  about  it. " 

"And  if  I  never  love  you  again  as  long 
as  we  live?"  Crumbs  turned  his  eyes 
upon  me. 

"  I  don't  know, "  he  said.  "  I'm  going 
to  think  about  that,  too.  Maybe  if  you 
wont  ever  love  me  anymore  I  shall  decide 
you  are  wrongin'  me.  "  It  was  a  bad  day 
for  us.  Frequently  I  looked  out  of  the 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES       163 

window  at  the  police  station,  and 
Crumbs  began  to  grow  uneasy. 

"  What  are  you  looking  over  there  for  ? " 
he  asked. 

"  I  am  anxious  about  your  case.  I 
think  you  will  be  arrested.  " 

"I'll  'splain  it  all  to  the  ossifers,  'n* 
they're  my  friends  and  they'll  believe 
me,  and  tell  the  'boss'  he  ought  to  be 
ashamed. " 

"  You  have  done  something  that  your 
friends  cannot  save  you  from.  The 
goods  belong  to  the  man.  He  can  have 
you  arrested.  Your  friends  at  the  police 
station  will  feel  very  badly  about  it — but 
they  cannot  help  you.  "  Crumbs  became 
disquieted.  Before  night  I  sent  a  note  to 
the  police  station,  and  within  the  hour 
one  of  Crumbs'  friends  came  over.  He 
was  a  discriminating  "ossifer"  and  the 
matter  did  not  take  long.  He  had 
come  to  arrest  the  young  man  who 
had  taken  the  contractor's  goods.  He 
seemed  about  to  weep  and  Crumbs  was 
frightened. 


164       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

"  I'll  give  it  back  "  he  said,  and  started 
to  get  it. 

"I'm  afraid  that  will  not  do,"  the 
officer  explained.  "  As  I  am  your  friend 
and  as  the  sergeant  is  your  friend,  we 
wont  put  this  matter  down  in  our  big 
book  over  there,  till  we  have  done  all  we 
can  for  you.  If  we  should  put  it  on  the 
blotter,  of  course  you  would  never  get 
over  it.  Everybody  would  hear  about  it, 
and  it  would  go  pretty  hard  with  a  young 
man  like  you.  You  could  never  get  a 
job  in  the  world — guess  you'd  starve  to 
death  after  you  got  out  of  jail.  But  I'll 
tell  you,  if  the  '  boss '  will  consent  to  take 
this  back,  and  will  forgive  you,  you'll 
get  off.  But  if  he  won't  take  it  back  and 
drop  the  case,  you're  up  against  it, 
Crumbs. " 

Crumbs  was  so  frightened  that  he  did 
not  rightly  know  what  he  was  doing,  but 
he  found  his  cap,  took  the  pick  and  with 
sparkling,  feverish  eyes,  he  started  to  the 
door.  If  Crumbs  lived  through  it,  I  was 
afraid  I  shouldn't. 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        165 

"Wait  son,  and  I'll  go  with  you,  "I 
said,  and  followed  him.  He  grasped  my 
hand  with  a  spasmodic  clutch  and  we 
got  half  way  down  the  stairs,  a  solemn 
procession  indeed ;  then  Crumbs  stopped. 

"Say  ossifer,  you  said  if  I  get  put  in 
the  big  book  the  sergeant  writes  in,  I'll 
never  get  a  job  nor  anything,  and  it'll  be 
awful  as  long  as  I  live. "  The  officer 
nodded  solemnly. 

"Then — you  go  back" — the  boy  said. 
"I'll — I'll  stand  it  alone,"  and  he  led 
me  back  up  the  stairs  to  the  door. 

Surely  if  such  a  child  grows  to  harmful 
manhood,  even  with  all  the  handicap  of 
erraticism  and  emotional  excess,  the 
mother  will  be  to  blame! 

Crumbs  returned  a  little  later,  but 
could  not  say  much.  He  threw  himself 
into  a  chair,  nodded  many  times,  and 
sobbed,  but  with  no  exhibition  of  tears. 

"The  Boss  said  I  was  a  good  boy  to 
come  right  up  to  him  with  it,  anyhow, " 
he  breathed.  Inwardly  I  anathematized 
the  Boss.  It  was  no  time  for  extenua- 


1 66       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

tions  nor  ameliorations  nor  suavity.  It 
was  a  moment  in  which  Crumbs  should 
have  met  the  worst.  Later,  we  had  our 
familiar  talk  about  those  things  which 
constitute  good  citizenship;  and  in  the 
end  Crumbs  voiced  the  opinion  of  several 
of  us:  "  Life's  no  cinch!  " 

Crumbs,  as  he  grew  to  his  seven  years, 
seemed  most  of  all  to  desire  to  be  a  good 
citizen,  public  spirit  being  large  within 
him.  He  is  still  little  more  than  seven, 
and  may  take  the  spring  overcoat  yet, 
but  there  are  no  alarming  indications. 

A  child  is  capable  of  almost  any 
development  if  its  original  tendencies 
are  forever  under  advisement,  and  if  a 
woman  regards  the  making  of  a  man  or 
woman  as  a  serious  matter.  Such  a 
mother  will  encounter  resistance  in  her 
child  from  the  moment  it  experi- 
ences the  first  colic,  unless  it  be 
a-typic.  A  rudimentary  moral  educa- 
tion must  be  conducted  along  the  lines 
of  least  resistance  until  enough  char- 
acter has  been  insinuated  into  the  sys- 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        167 

tern  to  stand  for  something  on  its  own 
account. 

Morals  can  be  developed  irrespective 
of  a  child's  mental  alertness,  to  a  very 
large  extent;  because  morals  may  be 
insinuated  through  the  affections.  But 
the  process  calls  for  something  like  a 
creative  faculty  on  the  mother's  part, 
and  she  will  probably  never  have  a 
vacation  this  side  of  the  grave;  but, 
given  a  fair  intelligence  and  the  power 
of  affection  not  entirely  lacking,  a  gen- 
eration of  maternal  application  will  raise 
the  average,  both  of  morals  and  of  intel- 
ligence. 

One  of  the  surest  things  is  that  a  child 
cannot  be  taught  arbitrarily  to  be 
"  good,  "  with  lasting  results.  Hence,  in 
implanting  a  moral  character,  one  is 
bound  to  develop  what  of  intelligence  a 
child  has.  The  nearest  approach  to 
arbitrary  teaching  of  right  that  can  be 
done,  is  to  make  appeal  to  the  affections 
and  to  remember  all  the  time  that  the 
child  is  born  with  some  kind  of  brain — 


168       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

even  if  it  could  be  at  first  little  better 
than  unconvoluted  guava  jelly  instead  of 
what  it  is — the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world.  To  teach  along  these  lines  can- 
not be  called  an  arbitrary  method.  It 
is  a  continual  demonstration  of  cause  and 
effect. 

There  are  several  moral  vestigia  that 
may  set  up  an  inflammatory  process,  as 
certainly  as  that  there  are  left-overs  of 
anatomy ;  and  these  consist  of  hereditary 
traits  and  taints.  Given  a  debauched 
parent,  one  must  be  on  the  watch  for 
something  unexpected  in  her  child.  The 
unexpected  need  not  of  a  necessity  be 
iniquitous.  The  heredity  may  exhibit 
itself  as  a  wholesale  hyperaesthesia  of 
spirit;  and  this  may  turn  out  a  genius 
as  well  as  a  devil,  but  it  is  likely  to  turn 
out  something  extreme. 

Even  if  the  extreme  tendencies  are  good 
ones,  eternal  vigilance  on  somebody's  part 
is  necessary.  Tendencies  toward  excess 
cannot  be  left  to  themselves  at  any  time. 
Excessive  goodness  goes  off  at  half-cock 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        169 

and  may  be  either  futile  or  harmful  in  its 
application,  because  unregulated.  A 
child  with  a  debauched  ancestry  will  not 
necessarily  be  debauched  in  turn,  but 
he  is  likely  to  have  a  set  of  nerves  and 
tendencies  which  will  render  him  a 
thousand-fold  more  vulnerable  than  his 
neighbours,  and  possibly  a  thousand-fold 
more  capable.  Either  way  it  means  that 
a  woman  must  sit  up  nights  with  her 
fears — and  never  once  betray  to  her 
best  beloved  that  she  fears  at  all. 

Moral  confidence  is  moral  assurance. 
A  consciousness  of  Well-done  inspires  a 
capacity  for  Better-doing.  This  is  not 
theory  but  the  experience  of  all  con- 
templative people  who  have  found  ex- 
istence a  struggle,  and  such  being  in  the 
majority  have  a  right  to  speak,  even  to 
postulate. 

The  most  distressful  factor,  not  of  a 
subjective  character,  which  a  woman 
must  meet,  is  the  innocuous  opinions  on 
childhood  of  those  women  who  have 
never  brought  up  any  children, 


170       CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

A  woman  who  may  be  able  to  deal  out 
abstruse  philosophies,  but  who  has  not 
completely  demonstrated  her  sex,  and 
is  still  childless  at  forty,  can  not  legiti- 
mately speak  advisorily  upon  the  subject 
of  childhood.  Such  a  woman  will, 
nine  times  in  ten,  maintain  that  a  mother 
is  incapable  of  regarding  her  child  with- 
out prejudice.  This  contention  is  not 
due  to  the  woman's  mental  incapacity, 
but  to  her  inexperience.  Nothing  on 
earth  but  motherhood  could  make  such  a 
statement  from  that  kind  of  a  woman 
appear  in  all  its  absurdity. 

It  is  not  even  necessary  that  a  mother 
should  regard  her  problem  unemotionally 
in  order  to  perceive  her  child's  distressful 
eccentricities  of  conduct,  and  then  to 
sweat  drops  of  blood  over  them.  A 
mother  needs  only  to  be  intelligent  with 
the  average  intelligence.  The  woman 
who  regards  a  child  without  any  of  a 
mother's  emotions  is  incapable  of  un- 
prejudice  in  such  a  case.  It  would  be 
contrary  to  human  nature  if  she  could 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES        171 

regard  unprejudicedly  that  which  irri- 
tates her,  since  she  lacks  the  sustaining 
and  indulgent  mood  of  motherhood.  She 
not  only  observes  the  faults  of  a  child 
which  is  not  her  own,  but  she  is  very 
properly  distracted  by  them.  Every 
one  resents  personal  annoyance,  but  the 
woman  who  suffers  it  from  her  children 
is  able  to  endure  with  hope. 

No  one  can  regard  a  child  so  unpre- 
judicedly as  his  mother.  She  alone,  sees 
the  side-lights  illumining  the  good  and 
the  bad,  for  both  are  with  her  day  and 
night.  That  which  to  a  mother  may 
properly  be  interpreted  as  a  superficial 
fault  of  behaviour,  due  to  some  experi- 
ence to  which  she  alone  is  privy,  is  likely 
to  mean  to  the  disinterested  on-looker 
some  radical  defect  of  character.  That 
which  may  be  an  evidence  of  a  gracious 
spirit  to  the  outsider,  may  stand  to  the 
mother  either  for  a  superficiality  with- 
out meaning,  or  for  something  which 
may  cause  her  anxiety.  A  mother's  un- 
prejudice  lies  in  her  affections ;  and  "Love 


172      CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 

is  Vigilance,"  all  other  apothegms  to  the 
contrary.  Fascinations  may  render  us 
blind,  but  Love  sees. 

The  man  or  woman  who  sits  apart  and 
looks  on,  wholly  uninvolved  except  in 
superficial  observation,  is  the  least  suit- 
able person  in  the  world  to  give  advice 
in  regard  to  the  control  of  children.  To 
them  children  are  no  more  than  children. 
To  every  intelligent  mother  the  word 
implies  a  number  of  individuals,  each 
entitled  to  the  nicest  distinctions  in 
treatment. 

One  half  the  good  results  in  training 
a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go,  spring 
from  mother-love;  the  other  half  from 
sound  intelligence.  The  prejudiced, 
childless  woman  lacks  just  half  the  qual- 
ification, and  her  opinion  is  not  worth  a 
cent. 

She  may  run  an  orphan  asylum,  but 
she  can't  make  men  and  women,  as  that 
is  a  good  deal  more  than  some  of  us  can 
do,  who  have  all  the  qualifications. 

Because  a  woman  refuses  to  discuss  too 


CRUMBS  AND  HIS  TIMES 


T73 


intimately  her  child,  thereby  revealing 
all  she  knows  of  his  shortcomings,  it 
does  not  follow  that  she  is  ignorant  of 
them.  Possibly  she  has  some  regard  for 
her  own  dignity  as  made  manifest  in  her 
child.  A  woman  may  not  without  ex- 
cuse canvass  her  children's  faults  with 
anyone  but  their  father  or  the  family 
physician.  The  family  physician  is  given 
place  because  a  child's  moral  and  physical 
health  are  sufficiently  interdependent  to 
require  expert  advice  a  good  deal  of  the 
time. 

The  less  a  woman  permits  of  personal 
discussion  of  her  children,  the  better. 
Reticence  makes  for  good  form,  if  not  for 
fair  dealing. 

First  catch  your  child — and  then 
teach  him  generosity,  gratitude,  love  of 
his  neighbour,  regard  for  personal  rights, 
the  fundamental  principles  of  good 
citizenship,  optimism,  and  the  "  greatest 
of  these,"  which  is  SELF-CONTROL. 


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